Supercar Automakers Worry About Increased Female Buyers - Is Male Ownership A Tradition Worth Breaking?

Supercar makers are like teenage boys at a high school dance, according to business consultant Belinda Parmar. They don't have a clue how to speak to women.

They may need to learn, and quickly.

With the number of financially independent women on the rise across much of the world, high-performance carmakers risk losing a potentially big market to more adaptable rivals.

"Any woman could drive those cars," said Sonja Heiniger, the Swiss owner of an Internet services firm who has owned four Lamborghinis and hits the racetrack in a Porsche.

"If you only address men, then that’s a pity," the 76 year-old said as she touched the accelerator in her latest Lamborghini, a $375,000 Gallardo Super Trofeo Stradale special edition car in "rosso mars" red.

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TheSteve - 5/19/2015 7:27:52 PM

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Most women don't have buckets of testosterone pumping through their veins, driven my 3 million years of evolution to exhibit signs of power and virility as part of the mate-attraction process. This is a big reason why you get teenage boys cracking up cars in their attempt to impress others, while females participate in this ritual to a much, much smaller degree.

This is NOT a slam against exotic cars, or against testosterone-driven guys. I'm merely making a statement that women don't ache for exotic cars, not because of lack of marketing, but because they're a different animal (and thank god for that! :-)

So go a head and market your exotic cars to women. With women making up just over 50% of the population, you should be able to double your sales, right? ;-)

trmckin - 5/19/2015 11:08:54 PM

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I think this has more to do with spending disposable income, image, and standing out in a crowd. All things that many wealthy people like to do and that goes for men and women.

TheSteve - 5/20/2015 12:07:42 PM

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trmckin: Of all the female execs, CEOs and millionaires I'm aware of, very, very few of them are into exotic hypercars. As my post states, I don't believe that's due to lack of marketing to women.

jeffgall - 5/20/2015 7:54:27 AM

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Trmckin - if that is the case, we will start to see softer entrants in this segment that speak to a more practical side a woman is looking for,

TomM - 5/21/2015 12:17:14 AM

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Like it or not - they already have had to speak to women since women have made up over 50% of their target market for at least 50 years. Coming from the Englishtown NJ area (Raceway Park - and we once had a Stock Car Track here as well) - there has always been a smaller (Than men) but very dedicated group of woman who have participated in Racing at a number of levels - and have the ability to purchase and drive such cars (some even better than men). And the physically smaller woman (On average) actually fit into those cars better than some of the bigger and especially taller men do today.