Design drives desirabilityIs this a luxury car? McLaren think so as they describe themselves as “a British manufacturer of luxury, high-performance sports cars, located at the McLaren Technology Cent (MTC) in Woking, Surrey”. Technically the most advanced road-legal car, many auto-aficionados think that its combination of performance and make it the greatest super car ever to touch tarmac.Saudi Gazette report LUXURY is rarely a more difficult term to define than when applied to automobiles. It varies with whose opinion you choose. With some luxury goods, art or designer jewellery, the factors of price and possession are possibly the main drivers. With cars however, functionality, sports heritage and performance make for less clarity. In 2011, four US motor company executives met to give their ideas. For Don Butler, as Marketing Manager for Cadillac, “The definition of luxury changed. Luxury was size, space, comfort and presence. Now, “the feel of the vehicle” defines luxury more. “The difference is not just price,” thought Brian Smith, vice president in charge of marketing for Toyota's Lexus brand. He opined that luxury has to do with the overall experience of purchase and ownership; the car, the dealer, the reputation of the brand, the satisfaction of owning a certain brand. Ludwig Willisch, President of BMW North America had a suitably economical answer; “Emotion”, while Steve Shannon, vice president of marketing for Hyundai Motor America identified time saved and hassles reduced as the essence of a luxury appeal. The result was not dissimilar to the aphorism on art: “I don't know what art is, but I know what I like”. And what the buying public like varies hugely. Does, for example, size matter? “Americans are not alone in equating luxury and size,” says auto researcher Edmunds.com analyst Ivan Drury. “It's a worldwide notion.” Yet he notes the success of the Lexus CT200h, a compact hatchback with a gas-electric hybrid powertrain. “(This) shows there is a market for smaller, more-fuel-efficient luxury cars that are distinguished enough and have the right features.” Willisch thought many owners of BMW's popular 3 Series compacts were not looking for bigger cars. Their dream was not to move up to BMW's large 7 Series. “They would have no problem paying $60,000 for a 3 Series. They don't want a larger car.” Hyundai's Shannon: “There is an extra level of craftsmanship, refinement and, in some cases, features, and an overall presence and stance that, frankly, size often gives you that is completely unique to luxury cars. “Clearly, in the luxury business, provenance matters, heritage matters.” And so the debate rolls on, touching on dealership experience, membership of an exclusive coterie, heritage and significantly, performance in a whole mix of intangibles that combine to form the chimera of ‘luxury”. Clearly, there is a social component to luxury involving impressing our peers. Academics have described luxury as “an absence of vulgarity”, and luxury goods as those that provide extra pleasure by flattering all senses at once. If we “know it when we see it”, then we see, hear, feel and smell luxury in for example a Bentley Mulsanne. A huge V8 delivers 752 imperiously smooth lb-ft of torque. Each Mulsanne requires 12 weeks to build, and buyers choose from 114 standard paint colors, 24 hide colors and types, 21 carpet options and nine wood veneers. At a build rate of 700-800 per year, it was sold out for two years when it debuted in 2010. Taking the Mulsanne as a possible benchmark for luxury, Andy Lewis, platform manager for the model line, thinks that in the concept of luxury that acquisition and ownership experience are as important as the product. “I'd describe the Mulsanne as the strongest and purest essence of the Bentley brand. It offers the most bespoke choices, like a tailored suit. Crucially, I think, it delivers on the idea that I arrive where I'm going feeling more comfortable and invigorated than when I left.” In the chicken-and-the-egg context of brand and luxury, the brand is only as good as the product. “It all comes from the product,” said Lewis. “Our customers are very demanding. They have long experience with ours and other luxury brands. If after a week in a Mulsanne they couldn't tell what justified the price premium compared to an S-class, we'd fail.” Brand and trust are intertwined, and trust is a key element of luxury. We trust that a luxury good is the best quality. Before the financial crash in 2008, many, many brands positioned themselves as luxury. Most disappeared when conspicuous consumption went out of fashion. Familiar brands such as Cartier or Hermès came through.” On the other hand the Mercedes Maybach line was absolutely a luxury brand, with products, service and exclusivity to support the point. However, the revived Maybach was ultimately solely a marketing fabrication. And it failed. Looking at the meta-language of luxury, it is not just the creature comforts that make a luxury car. The design of any car can make or break it as a profitable venture or define it as a luxury vehicle. By definition, luxury caters to wants not needs and changing the former into the latter is the aim of the marketing man. In both markets design drives desirability and in the making of a luxury car it is a key element as McLaren's chief design engineer Dan Parry-Wilkinson prioritizes function over pure style it has to do “what it says on the label”, a nod toward the idea that a close harmony between engineering and design is the key to achieving greatness. McLaren's new P1, launched at the Paris Motor Show in September 2012 presses all the ‘luxury' buttons in terms of craft, technological excellence and exclusivity. Performance and price are yet formally to be announced but educated guesses pit it at close to SR4 million. But luxurious in terms of sumptuousness it is not; the interior is a working area and while the trim is immaculate, compared with the seductive comforts of large luxury saloons, it is spartan. Yet it is still a luxury car and eminently desirable. It is greatness, exclusivity and desirability that are the meta-constituents of luxury in the automotive world, not just sumptuousness. “The most important principle for deign success, no matter what segment, is the creation of what I would deem the desirability factor”, he said in a recent interview with the Robb Report. Aston Martin however has, with the new four-door Rapide S, aimed squarely at including ‘luxury' and ‘sumptuousness' in the design mix. It is still very much a sports car but appeals to a distinctly different buyer profile form the McLaren. “The Rapide S is to me, without doubt, the most beautiful four-door sports car on the market today. This is, very clearly, the power of luxury in action,” Aston Martin Chief Executive Officer, Dr Ulrich Bez has said. The company describes the new Rapide S — which replaces the outgoing Rapide in markets worldwide — as “even more refined thanks to a range of additions to the four-seater's sumptuous interior”. The Rapide S, he noted was a four-door sports car, “that uniquely combines luxury, style and sporting excitement in Aston Martin's most flexible and accommodating silhouette. Purity of proportion and exceptional elegance are mixed with truly sensational dynamic performance.” Essentially, luxury is in the eye of the beholder and carmakers tailor their cars to market segments. The most obvious factor to all is that whatever the vehicle, its own particular style of luxury is never inexpensive.
