Dubai: Super-luxury carmaker Rolls-Royce does not intend to change direction. And for good reason too.
"We are always producing one car less than we can sell," said Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes, Rolls-Royce chief executive officer.
"It's easy to produce more, but that would be completely against the Rolls essence," he said.
"I can't produce cars for stocks and I am not prepared to do so. The brand is known for highly bespoke luxury cars and in our business we can't push cars into the market," Mueller-Oetvoes said.
"It might be that from time to time dealers are complaining to us about needing more cars. But I do not want to over-produce in good times."
And these are certainly good times for the 107-year-old British marque. Last week it announced its best results ever — 3,538 units in 2011, a 23 per cent gain over the 2,700-plus units in the year before.
Stellar numbers
The Middle East had a hand in the stellar numbers with both the UAE and Saudi Arabia finding spots in the top five markets worldwide. The region as a whole represented 23 per cent of the carmaker's sales.
This makes one wonder whether regional dealers could not have done better if they had had more units. But Mueller-Oetvoes is not one to budge from as closely held an article of faith as that related to producing more cars than there is actual demand for.
But that is not the same as saying there will not be any expansion. The carmaker recently announced plans for its base in Goodwood, though this will be exclusively to raise its bespoke capacities.
"More and more of our customers want to see the kind of bespoke that's done in the Phantom [and] in the Ghost. It's good for the business and we are coping with the demand by expanding capacity," he said.
"For instance, in Germany, the group of ultra-high networth individuals will grow by 10 per cent this year and these are encouraging signals for the ultra-luxury car market that it will be quite stable or even grow next year. Otherwise I would not have invested in the plant expansion."
But Rolls will keep studiously away from a recent trend that other premium automakers seem to be interested in — developing the city car and thus try to create a buyer base that did not exist earlier.
"We are not going the route that Aston Martin took — Rolls-Royce always stands for sumptuous, luxurious ambience with enough space at the back and front," the CEO said.
Key assets
"You need a certain type of car to deliver that and that has been one of the key assets of the brand. To sit comfortably, you need the space. For that reason, we are not looking into smaller city cars."
On the more prosaic issue of prospects for 2012, Mueller-Oetvoes reckons there are reasons for optimism.
"The economy in the US has picked up very positively in the last couple of weeks of December, which fuelled a lot of our business. Hopefully, the US will recover even further from the downturn — an election year has always proved to be a good year for economic development," he said.
"On an international level, there's certainly a more optimistic picture than a pessimistic one. This is aligned to signals still coming out of Asia, though we no longer see the explosive growth in the last couple of years," he added.
"If there's no new turmoil, I will be betting on the Middle East. I am also betting on certain countries in Europe — Germany, also possibly the UK. But it might be that one or the other countries might see a recession," Mueller-Oetvoes said.
"It's number one on my wish-list that the politicians would sort out the euro crisis quite quickly. We need to have a more stable situation in Europe, definitely. It's all a crystal ball. At the start of 2011, who would have forecast the Arab Spring? Nobody."
Suppliers going strong
With Rolls-Royce in record-setting mode in terms of 2011 sales and with growth expected to continue this year, its auto parts suppliers are much better placed than their counterparts.
The wider European car industry has been passing through some testing times and the recent bout of concerns over the Eurozone has not helped matters either. This leaves independent parts suppliers to the auto industry particularly vulnerable.
But Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes, Rolls-Royce chief executive office, believes the fate of its suppliers would be quite different.
"We have quite a reliable and stable network of suppliers, and they are financially very strong," he said. "Even if the automotive industry sees a year of downturn, they have enough financial power to guarantee they will succeed. I am not worried."
