Did you know that one australian dollar is worth roughly 1.06 US dollars? It wasn’t so a handful of years ago but fluctuations in the value of gold and the fact that the Aussies are major exporters of the stuff have resulted in an increase for the AUD. Does that mean extra buying power? Not when it comes to supercars.
The brand-spanking-new Lamborghini Aventador, for instance, cost a hefty AU$754,600 – or more than twice the price you would pay for one in the US. In addition, it’s also 51 percent more expensive than the Diablo was ten years ago, according to The Brisbane Times.
Thing have gotten so bad that one Australian businessman, Ra Hazouri, has refused to pay: “I was considering buying a Lamborghini Aventador but I’ve given up because I’ve discovered the dealers are blaming Italy [for the pricing] and the people in Italy are saying they have the right to rip us off because everyone else does it.They are doing it because they can – and they told me in an email that the price is ‘locally positioned relative to competitors, product features and brand values’.”
Lamborghini’s South East Asia and Oceania sales manager Andrea Baldi tries to justify the high prices, saying they can’t always match them to the fluctuating exchange rates: “We have to ensure the price is fair compared with Porsche, Maserati, Aston Martin, Ferrari and other competitors. It’s always a difficult balance. There are markets where you can be fairly profitable … Australia and the UK are opposite [in profitability] at this moment. It’s difficult to finds a solution so that everybody’s happy. We cannot simply play with the price [depending on currency changes] each year.”
So basically, the currency is too unstable and they are hedging their bets... all together, at the same time. Once thing puzzles us though: If the Australian dollar plunged by a third, that Aventador we talked about in the beginning will still be more expensive than in the US and UK.
Google News