Top-end of town gorged on ultra-luxury cars in 2022 as Audi, BMW, Mercedes slipped

Well-heeled buyers of ultra-luxury cars splurged billions of dollars in 2022 to drive Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti to all-time sales records.

The hangover from the global pandemic – and predictions of a recession – had little effect on the top-end of town, where cars are typically priced from more than half-a-million dollars, Rolls-Royces eclipse $1 million and Bugattis easily pass $2 million.

Further down the luxury pecking order, things were not as good for the traditional German heavyweights – Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz – as they all suffered sales declines in 2022.

The two most exclusive British luxury car-makers – Rolls-Royce and Bentley – claim to have sold a combined total of 21,195 ultra-luxury cars last year.

Bugatti, too, is claiming a record result for 2022 – although its total is just 80 deliveries – and Lamborghini also claimed a 10 per cent improvement from 2021 to take its worldwide total to 9233 cars last year.

Bentley did best of the top-end brands, with the Bentayga SUV as its headliner, with a reported 15,174 deliveries.

The Cullinan, Rolls-Royce's hulking SUV, also led the way for its company as it reported 6021 deliveries.

Bugatti does not have an SUV in its line-up, but said it produced the planned 10 examples of its special edition Centodieci, while the Urus SUV topped the total at Lamborghini.

According to Rolls-Royce – whose cars are priced from $635,000 before on-road costs in Australia – 2022 was the first time the company had produced more than 6000 cars in a calendar year during its 118-year history.

Behind the Cullinan, the Ghost was second in sales – and the leader in the Asia-Pacific region – although Rolls-Royce did not provide any detailed breakdown of its numbers.

“Sales are not our sole measure of success: we are not and never will be a volume manufacturer,” said Torsten Müller-Ötvös, CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, in a statement.

The company claimed the best year yet for its 'Bespoke' division – which personalises cars for customers in a highly-profitable tailor-made division – and also the 'Black Badge' models that are most popular in the Asia-Pacific region.

Rolls-Royce also said demand for its first electric car – the Spectre coupe – has exceeded its forecast, without giving any numbers or any more detail on a launch date expected towards the end of this year.

“As we mark the 20th anniversary of the Home of Rolls-Royce at Goodwood, these results confirm Rolls-Royce Motor Cars as a great British success story,” said Mr Torsten Müller-Ötvös

Bentley, too, was celebrating after a four per cent lift in sales, with the best improvement in the 'Americas' (28 per cent) and China (24 per cent).

Although the Bentaya has been on sale for six years, its total continued to rise and it now accounts for 42 per cent of Bentley's total.

“The business overcame significant headwinds and demonstrated great resilience to deliver the third consecutive record sales year,” said Adrian Hallmark, chairman and CEO of Bentley Motors.

The claimed Bugatti total for 2022 includes the 400th Chiron and the final nine Chiron Super Sport 300+ cars.

Its factory, which opened at Molsheim in France in 2005, is already fully booked for the next two years to build the Mistral and track-only Bolide.

Lamborghini, too, claims a full order book into 2024 and is expected to reveal the replacement for its V12 Aventador later this year.

Deliveries of the Urus improved to seven per cent for a claimed total of 5357, with the Huracan next on 3113.

BMW was the best of the German premium brands last year, despite reporting a 5.1 per cent drop in its worldwide sales.

Its claimed total was 2,100,692 vehicles, ahead of Mercedes-Benz at 2,043,900 after a 1.0 per cent drop and Audi on 1,614,231 cars after a 3.9 per cent fall.

BMW was also ahead in claimed deliveries of electric cars, more than doubling its result from 2021 with a total of 215,755 to finish well ahead of Audi at 118,196 and Mercedes-Benz with 117,800.

“The next milestone for 2023 is for 15% of our total sales to come from fully-electric vehicles,” said Pieter Nota, BMW's board member responsible for customer, brands and sales.