IF YOU’RE thinking of buying a Ferrari 812 Superfast and you don’t yet have an order in place, don’t bother. The company has revealed demand for its new $610,000 V12 flagship is so high that it has enough orders to account for its entire five year life-cycle, plus 50 percent.
Ferrari Australia CEO Herbert Appleroth told Wheels Ferrari’s situation of record demand fighting limited supply is now “beyond funny” and is investigating ways to address the issue, which isn’t only spawning multi-year wait times but seeing many customers miss out altogether.
“Look, it creates a problem,” he said at the Ferrari 812’s Australian reveal. “We started pre-sales [of the 812] when we had a special preview in Maranello in February and since then we can now announce the 812 is the most successful pre-launch of any Ferrari in our history. More than 488, more than California T, we’ve never seen the number of pre-sales we’ve had for this car. It’s 1.5 times what we expected the entire life-cycle to be, that’s what we’ve already got orders for.
“We are up front with our clients and say “yes, you’re welcome to be part of the waiting list, we’ll take your order and your deposit, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get a car. But we’re working very hard to try and make their dreams come true.”
Exactly how Ferrari plans to remedy the situation remains to be seen, with Appleroth admitting his requests for increased supply have been politely declined.
“Our executive team is looking at how they manage this because now it is beyond funny,” he said. “Now the entire life cycle is sold out. I thought I’d get in nice and early and ask for more supply, and we have obviously gone back to the factory, but the answer was ‘yes Australia is exceptional, but the response has been similar around the world.’”
Appleroth credits the 812’s record demand to its naturally aspirated V12, which is Ferrari’s most powerful production engine ever with 588kW/718Nm on tap.
“So many people have come back to this love affair with the V12…this level of demand is beyond our dreams. The supercar market is essentially in a boom in Australia. We decided to have a nice consistent 9-10 percent growth per year which means we haven’t met the market’s demands. But now it’s beyond that, now we have to do something.”
Ferrari sold 188 cars in the 2016 calendar year which was a 12.6 percent increase year-on-year. So far in 2017 the Italian marque had moved 79 cars to the end of May for a growth rate of 8.2 percent.
The first batch of 812 Superfasts will land in Australia this December.
