7:46 am, June 25, 2023
When can a car manufacturer be called ‘luxury’? These are the types of thrilling thoughts that go through my mind when I should be paying attention to something far more important.
Like driving my precious MG out of the garage without scraping the wing mirror on the wall. Or listening intently to my other half as she says we desperately need insulation panels nailed to our conservatory roof. Both of these have proved to be ruinously expensive.
But I’ve got distracted again… The whole luxury thing is one I’ve been pondering a lot – most recently this week after spending a day with Maserati: that fabled carmaker that has had more reboots than Simon Cowell’s face.
We all take it for granted that brands such as Dior, Gucci and Burberry are truly luxurious, while there’s no question that car brands such as Bentley are pretty posh and always have been.
But how do you get into that elite league? It’s not exactly easy, that’s for sure. Many carmakers have crashed and burned while trying to elevate themselves into the premium world of flashy chrome, soft leather interiors and concierge interiors – you only need to utter the word ‘Vignale’ to Ford and executives start wincing.
But that’s the premium sector. Luxury? That’s a whole different ball game. JLR is undergoing the mother of all reinventions at the moment. There’s the new JLR name, not Jaguar Land Rover, for starters, and the whole House of Brands concept that to me conjures up images of a fading high street department store rather than an aspirational and luxurious retail experience. And ‘retail experience’ is the important point here.
My day with Maserati included the chance to sit down with its UK boss. Peter Charters has been at the helm since 2020, but neither I nor Car Dealer have had a chance to chat to him because a global pandemic got in the way and, let’s face it, Maserati hadn’t launched a new car for years.
You can read what he had to say here, but essentially both Maserati and JLR have identified that the true luxury customer doesn’t want a traditional dealer experience.
For them, the ‘clinical’ – to quote Charters – feeling that showrooms tend to have is not an environment the luxury customer wants to do business in. But coffee bars, configuration walls, personalisation suites and the feeling they’re not being actively ‘sold’ to very much are.
It’s about stroking egos, not the indignity of haggling over mudflaps. Strangely, I think Maserati could finally be a success in the UK.
The new Grecale, Maserati’s smallest SUV it offers here, is a good effort. It’s not better than a Porsche Macan, but it’s more than good enough at being a luxurious, performance-orientated mid-size SUV, and you can be sure the forthcoming GranTurismo will be achingly desirable.
It’s rolling out electric versions of its SUVs and coupes quicker than the other German brands, too, and Stellantis has said the brand needs to be profitable, but that won’t be through shifting cars on cheap finance or to fleets. Profitable and exclusive – that’s the direction.
JLR is following a curiously similar path, particularly with Jaguar. Just like Maserati, it has an illustrious motor racing past, and despite having the odd bout of pastiche styling and customers of an older vintage behind the wheel, there is something about the brand that makes it distinctive. But can they ever be branded as luxury carmakers?
No amount of retail foreplay, ego stroking and configuration walls in showrooms can achieve this. Luxury brands become luxury brands by customers, not by agencies working for car manufacturers.
It’s time to get out the popcorn and watch all of this unfold.
This column appears in the latest edition of Car Dealer – issue 184 – along with news, reviews and features. Click here to read and download it for free!
