Rolls-Royce has received around 1,500 serious expressions of interest in its soon to be launched Ghost model – a figure that would more than double the group’s annual sales.
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The BMW-owned brand would not unveil the new car until September but has generated “overwhelmingly positive” feedback after touring the world with a prototype, chief executive Tom Purves told the Reuters Global Luxury Summit in London.
“Over 10,000 people have expressed some sort of interest, but at least 15% have expressed a genuine desire to own the vehicle.”
Rolls Royce sold a record 1,200 ‘Phantom’ vehicles in 2008, but Purves said he expected sales to be flat this year as the economic downturn bites.
“We are trading reasonably well, just not on the scale of last year,” he said, adding that the luxury end of the car industry was typically late to enter recession and late coming out of it.
Purves also said Rolls-Royce was delivering a profit to its loss-making German parent.
“We expect to continue to make a (profitable) contribution,” he said.
He added that in his view the economy had bottomed out.
“We are bumping along the bottom … I do not see things getting any worse,” he said.
