China is Cracking Down on Supercar Extravagance

After several years of wealthy individuals going on massive buying sprees picking up everything from diamond-studded watches to supercars in China, the Chinese government began cracking down on extravagant spending late last year. Inevitably, this new policy will have serious effects on supercar brands like McLaren, Lamborghini and Ferrari whose Chinese sales have become key to their global growth plans. In other words, China will no longer be considered the growth market it was just three years ago.

All indications show the growth of the Chinese economy is slowing down. McLaren, for example, has yet to see a market recovery in China and that will have a bearing on how it will market new cars like the P1 to uber rich Chinese. Interestingly, McLaren displayed the P1 at the smaller Guangzhou auto show instead of a larger venue like Tokyo. Even the Porsche 918 Spyder and 911 Turbo were displayed there as well. To counteract the market slowdown, McLaren is planning to triple the number of its Chinese showrooms in 2014 and is pushing its F1 racing team profile as much as possible.