CARMEL, Calif. — McLaren CEO Michael Leiters believes the British luxury supercar maker can achieve the same kind of success as Ferrari, but in a slightly different way.
“We have one element to our brand, and that’s belonging,” Reiters, who has been at the helm of McLaren for two years after eight years as CTO at Ferrari, said in an interview with Yahoo Finance during Monterey Car Week. “We want talent here. … We’ll talk to anybody. There’s no arrogance.”
This could be interpreted as a not-so-veiled criticism of Ferrari, given that the Italian luxury sports car maker is notorious for secrecy, invitation-only events and only selling new cars to existing or preferred customers.
At the same time, McLaren is following what Ferrari has found so successful: building distinctive cars and selling them in small numbers at high prices to create scarcity and pricing power.
“We don’t want to copy Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche or anyone. Nobody,” he said. “What we’ve done with our brand and products is great. We just need to build on that and build on it to attract more prospects and customers to our business.”
McLaren debuted its new Artura Trophy EVO race car at the Quail event in Carmel (Photo by Pras Subramanian) (Prus Subramanian)
“We don’t want to supply the market all the time.”
McLaren has struggled with sluggish sales recently, plus a surplus of cars discontinued over the past few years has driven down residual values on the used market. Reiters said the company, which as of March is wholly owned by Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, is now focusing on the new Artura hybrid (starting at $238,000) and the 750S supercar (starting at $332,000).
“I think the most important thing is we’re now more customer-centric, more product-centric,” Reiters said. “We don’t want to always supply the market,” meaning McLaren aims to offer just below what’s needed to stimulate demand.
“We’re very sensitive to that. We’re building residual values. Residual values are recovering a lot,” Reiters said. “Compared to other brands, we’re recovering.”
McLaren sold 5,000 cars worldwide in 2019. This year it expects to sell around 3,500.
Reiters emphasized that the Artura sports car delivers significant performance gains without adding much weight — crucial in the supercar world — and said McLaren may also introduce an SUV that could broaden its customer base, or what he called a “shared performance vehicle.”
Michael Leiters attends the McLaren Artura Spider launch at Outernet London in London, England on May 14, 2024. (Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for McLaren Automotive Limited) (Jeff Spicer via Getty Images)
F1 success
Reiters added that the open spirit has been embraced by McLaren’s Formula 1 race team, which he says is the “best-liked” team on the grid.
The story continues
The McLaren F1 team is in the midst of a resurgence, winning on the track and beating Ferrari in recent months, a brand originally founded nearly 80 years ago to race (and which started selling road cars to fund its race team) that has suffered a string of disappointing results on the track. F1’s concurrent popularity in the United States has helped McLaren perform better in its most important sales territory.
Nevertheless, Ferrari continues to sell luxury sports cars (and at enviable profit margins) and has become a darling of the automotive investment world.
Reiters and McLaren are hoping that the F1 team’s recent success and a more inclusive attitude towards fans and potential customers will translate into sales success in showrooms.
Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow him at Twitter And on Instagram too.
For the latest stock market news and in-depth analysis, including stock-moving events, click here.
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance