--- title: Fastest-Growing Category of Cars Is One You Can't Afford description: Sales for Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Porsche, Maserati, and other ultra-luxury auto brands have been off the charts. Even stronger sales are expected down the road. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Lifestyle - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2015-03-03T13:00:17.000Z' modified: '2024-05-16T10:08:57.000Z' section: Lifestyle tags: - 1% - Autos - bentley - cars - luxury - luxury cars - Luxury SUVs - premium - rich - Rolls-Royce - suvs word_count: 502 canonical: https://money.com/bentley-rolls-royce-car-sales-increase/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Bentley Continental GT Cabriolet V8 S](https://img.money.com/2015/03/150302_em_luxecars_bentley.jpg) *Bentley Continental GT Cabriolet V8 S* It's an exceptionally good time to be in the game of selling cars to the 1%. And forecasters say that business will only get better for brands targeting ultra-luxury, ultra-premium vehicles—basically, anything with a sticker higher than $100K—to the ultra-rich. Halfway through 2014, all signs indicated that super high-end auto brands such as Rolls-Royce and Bentley were experiencing outstanding sales growth. In June, for instance, the [BBC noticed](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28209768) that Rolls-Royce sales were up 60% in Europe compared with the year before. For that matter, a recent [*Bloomberg News*](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-25/hyper-luxury-cars-are-now-selling-faster-than-normal-ones) report cites data from [IHS Automotive](http://press.ihs.com/news_releases/all) showing that the sales growth of ultra-premium or "hyper-luxury" cars far outpaced the industry as a whole in 2014, as well as every year dating back to 2010. Global sales of six-figure-price vehicles from the likes of Porsche, Maserati, Ferrari, and Lamborghini were up roughly 25% in 2014, compared with an industry-wide average increase of about 3%. What's behind the ultra-luxury auto sales surge? Unsurprisingly, there has been a corresponding surge in ultra-wealthy individuals. According to *Bloomberg*, since 2011 the number of households with net worth in excess of $30 million has grown 13%, and for these people, it's not that big of a deal to drop six figures on a car: > For a person worth $30 million, purchasing a car for a mere $100,000 isn’t a weighty decision. It’s akin to the median U.S. consumer with net worth of $45,000 swinging by the used car lot and dropping $1,350 on a well-worn Pontiac Aztek. The ultra-rich supposedly don't shop for cars like you and I do either. An [*Automotive News*](http://www.autonews.com/article/20150301/RETAIL01/303029986/ultraluxury-brands-on-course-for-near-40-rise-by-2020) story quoted Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes saying that his customers rarely cross-shopped other auto brands. Instead, "Our competition is a chalet in the Swiss Alps, a beautiful piece of art or a watch," he said. Accordingly, [Lamborghini sales](http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/info_center/en/news/2015/01/Lamborghini.html) increased 19% last year, while [Porsche sales](http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/info_center/en/news/2015/01/Porsche_AaK.html) were up 17%. At the same time, Lamborghini and Ferrari, among others, have taken steps to cap sales in order to avoid diluting the brand's exclusive image. Meanwhile, [Bentley sales](http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/info_center/en/news/2014/01/Bentley_FY.html) hit 10,120 units globally in 2013, up 19% from the year before, and [sales rose another 9%](http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/info_center/en/news/2015/01/Bentley_FY.html) in 2014, reaching 11,020 units. By 2020, Bentley is seeking annual sales to reach the 20,000 mark. One way that Bentley hopes to keep growing—and why the ultra-luxury category as a whole is forecast to rise around 40% over the next five years—is by expanding into the ultra-luxury SUV market. Porsche introduced a sport utility vehicle several years back, and now Bentley, Rolls-Royce, and [Jaguar](http://www.caranddriver.com/news/2017-jaguar-f-pace-suv-spy-photos-news) are among the luxury brands with their first-ever SUVs in the works. Bentley's SUV will be called the [Bentayga](http://bentayga.bentleymotors.com/en/the-new-bentley-suv.html)—already bashed as one of the [Worst Car Names](http://www.lamag.com/driver/bentley-bentayga-worst-car-name-ever/) ever, and it doesn't even go on sale until 2016. As the saying goes, if you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it. Suffice it to say that the automaker is promising that the forthcoming vehicle will be the [“most luxurious and most expensive”](http://www.wsj.com/articles/rolls-royce-unveils-plan-to-build-a-super-luxury-suv-1424217702) SUV on the planet. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/bentley-rolls-royce-car-sales-increase/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Lifestyle", "item": "https://money.com/lifestyle/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Places to Travel", "item": "https://money.com/places-to-travel/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Fastest-Growing Category of Cars Is One You Can't Afford" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/bentley-rolls-royce-car-sales-increase/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/bentley-rolls-royce-car-sales-increase/", "name": "Fastest-Growing Category of Cars Is One You Can't Afford", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2015-03-03T13:00:17.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/bentley-rolls-royce-car-sales-increase/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/bentley-rolls-royce-car-sales-increase/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-05-16T10:08:57.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Fastest-Growing Category of Cars Is One You Can't Afford", "articleSection": "Lifestyle", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2015/03/150302_em_luxecars_bentley.jpg", "width": 4724, "height": 3153, "caption": "150302_EM_LuxeCars_Bentley" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Brad Tuttle", "url": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/#author", "description": "Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals.\r\n\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/01/Brad-Tuttle.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "alumniOf": "Columbia University School of Journalism, MS", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle", "https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2015-03-03T13:00:17.000Z", "description": "Sales for Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Porsche, Maserati, and other ultra-luxury auto brands have been off the charts. 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