LEVEN Car Company, the Edinburgh Aston Martin and Rolls Royce dealer, is aiming to grow volume sales by 45 per cent with the opening of a super car showroom.
The new showroom, nearby Murrayfield Stadium, will sell the likes of Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porches, as well as housing a new Rolls Royce outlet.
The company is also expecting a surge of sales with the release of the Aston Martin DB11, the UK car maker's first new edition of its flagship model in 13 years.
Leven managing director Chris McMahon, who owns the business with his father, Hugh, revealed the company has pre-orders for 28 of the £160,000 cars.
Key to the company’s development is the opening of its second showroom. Big enough to house 40 cars, Mr McMahon said a quarter of the space will be dedicated to a new Rolls Royce showroom - which is set to open in December – with the rest bedecked with pre-owned supercars.
Having spent months scouring the capital for a suitable site, Mr McMahon was notified about what he called the “best site you could have for what we do”.
With customers likely to find a veritable banquet of pre-owned luxury cars available at any given time, Mr McMahon said the company’s philosophy is to build lasting relationships with purchasers.
“We hope it will become a really well-known destination for being warmly welcomed to come and look at cars. We want it to add volume and ultimately profit to the business, for it to be known as a place you can buy something well-prepared by people who want to look after you.”
Mr McMahon added there had been huge demand for the DB11, saying: “The Aston Martin brand is absolutely adored by customers and there has been pent up demand because the last model, the DB9, was launched in 2003, so we’ve taken 28 orders before anyone has even driven it, before a magazine had reviewed it.”
The first demonstration car arrived at Leven’s showroom yesterday, with 40 potential customers lined up to test it this weekend.
“People are desperate to drive this car, they put deposits down a year ago,” added Mr McMahon.
In addition to the DB11, the company has also been drawing huge interest in the recently launched £300,000 Rolls Royce Dawn. Mr McMahon anticipates 18 will be sold by the end of the year.
These two launches, and the new showroom, will help Leven drive sales to around £30 million this year. In its last full year, the company posted revenue of £26m, with a pre-tax loss of £43,000 incurred because of the scale of its investments.
“We’re a young business and we want to build a great business, so we’re not going to make a huge amount of profit in 2016, but we’ll have invested a huge amount, developed a huge amount,” said Mr McMahon. “Next year is one of consolidation as we’ve done all our big spending.”
Those sales have been hit by a reduction in interest from Aberdeen, a city from which Leven drew half its turnover before the oil and gas downturn.
“Aberdeen has slowed but Glasgow has picked up,” said Mr McMahon. “The bulk of our sales come in Edinburgh. But, the three company directors are all from Glasgow. We know where every car is sold and there are not enough in Glasgow so that’s a big focus for us.”
Staff numbers have grown to 31 with the opening of the new showroom. Mr McMahon said that as luxury car owners can change vehicles annually, and Rolls Royce drivers will, on average, own eight cars, ensuring these customers continue to buy from Leven makes customer service even more important than sales targets.
“It’s about building a relationship with these people so they come back to us,” said Mr McMahon. “If they deal with us once, it’s easy for them to buy again from us. So we now stock a range of cars that our Rolls Royce and Aston Martin customers will enjoy. They’ll be drawn to a Bentley, a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, so we try and stock interesting cars.”
Mr McMahon added: “It’s the only side of the business we can grow really, because we can only get so many new Rolls Royces and Aston Martins a year.”
He said Leven was “pretty much maxed-out” with its allocation, even as UK dealers are pushed harder because of a slowdown in sales in China and Russia.
The cars on offer range from £30,000 to the last available Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé in the UK, at £450,000 or a collection of three black Ferraris at £950,000.
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