India's flashy new rich in luxury car boom

From farmers who swapped fields for cash to 20-something CEOs that inherited the family business, hot new money is flooding India's luxury car market as roaring sportscar engines announce the country's growing wealth on its roads.

No senior Indian executive feels complete without his sleek German-made saloon, while Italian sportscars are the new calling cards for the country's rich young things at exclusive nightclubs that screen guests at the main gate, not at the door.

"There is a rush to luxury," says Mohan Mariwala, managing director of Auto Hangar, surrounded by gleaming Mercedes Benz sportscars in one of his four Mumbai showrooms for luxury cars.

"Farmers, tiny industrial families, the younger generation with different value systems...You can't imagine the kind of people who invest in extremely exotic cars today."

Headline growth in Asia's third-largest economy may be stuttering, but decades of growth has spawned a new upper class with global tastes and aspirations that is driving a $1bn luxury car market expanding at 40 percent annually, say industry analysts and research firms.

Five years ago, Daimler AG's Mercedes Benz was the only established luxury carmaker in India and sightings of sports cars on the dusty and poorly-maintained roads were rare.

Today, crowds gather along Mumbai's famous seafront to catch a glimpse of supercar parades, while a Facebook group for luxury car sightings explodes with excited chatter over a blurry photo of an Aston Martin Rapide, a car that costs more than $300,600 in a country where more than 500 million people live on less than $1.25 a day.

"The new Indian luxury consumer is pursuing a lifestyle where owning exclusive items and owning them first is a clear sign of wealth and power," Andrea Baldi, Southeast Asia and Pacific sales manager for Lamborghini, said.

Growth in overall car sales will likely be flat in the financial year that ends in March, India's auto industry association has said, as mainstream firms struggle with faltering demand thanks to rising interest rates and higher prices.

Luxury automakers, however, are rushing to set up shop.

Britain's Aston Martin, famously James Bond's car of choice, and Fiat's Italian brands Ferrari and Maserati all opened showrooms in India in 2011, joining established brands such as Volkswagen AG's Audi and BMW.

"India's young population is affluent and dynamic, the environment is just right," said Baldi.

Lamborghini introduced its Aventador LP 700-4 in the country in November, priced at 36.9 million rupees ($693,000). It has taken orders from India for more than 20 Aventadors and buyers must wait 18 months for delivery.

Not long ago, a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry was considered a luxury car in India, where small, cheap cars predominate and the best-selling model is Maruti Suzuki's Alto, which starts at 232,247 rupees.

"There is a distinctive shift happening. People are jumping segments...from a Honda Civic into a Mercedes Benz E-class," said Mariwala, who sells around 100 Mercedes vehicles a month from his four Mumbai showrooms.

Haresh Punjabi, 46, who lives in Gurgaon, a booming modern suburb of Delhi, owns a Mercedes ML350 sport utility vehicle, a BMW 740 Li, and a Porsche 911 Carrera. Punjabi, who exports home furnishings to the United States, said expensive cars have become commonplace in his neighborhood.

"If five years ago you bought a BMW or a Mercedes, people still looked at it. Today if you buy a BMW, Audi or Mercedes it's not as big a head-turner," he said.

Spending on luxury cars in India grew 36 percent in 2009-10 to $1 billion, according to a recently released report by AT Kearney, outstripping growth in jewelry, electronics and watches.

Demand for high-end cars goes beyond India's biggest cities.

While BMW sells 70 percent of its cars in Delhi and Mumbai, most of the 36 new showrooms it plans over the next four years will be in smaller cities.

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