High-end autos flying off the lot

The vrooom is back.

A good economy, growing families and a midlife crisis or two has supercharged the high-end car market in this country, and Northern Colorado is no exception.

“All I can tell you is that it’s a growing market,´ said John Carroll, general manager of Ed Carroll Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi and Mitsubishi in Fort Collins. “We sell more and more of them everyday.”

By “them,” Carroll means automobiles sporting price tags comparable to the cost of a small house in Fort Collins at the end of the ’80s. In Carroll’s case, this includes all the Porsches and some of his Audis. His Porsche and Audi business is up 50 percent over 1998 and 35 percent over 1997 in Fort Collins and up a bit more than 50 percent in Greeley.

The high-end category also includes Lexus, BMW, Mercedes and a number of pricey SUVs. And coming soon: a slew of turbocharged sports cars that run between $20,000 and $70,000, which puts them into the category of expensive toys.

With a price range between $29,900 and $105,000, BMWs are the priciest cars one can purchase from a dealership that is physically here in Northern Colorado.

“We’re doing excellent,´ said Christina Dawkins, general manager of Co’s BMW Center in Fort Collins. “Our sales are up 138 percent from last year.”

Some of that might have something to do with the company’s relocation to Fort Collins from Greeley. Dawkins said that she used to sell about three or four cars a month in their old location.

“Since we came here in late July, we’ve been doing 18 to 25 a month,” she said. BMW has even increased the allocation of cars it sends to Dawkins.

That doesn’t surprise Steven Schroeder, owner of Poudre Sports Car in Fort Collins. Schroeder deals in used cars such as Mercedes and BMW. His market is people who want high-end German workmanship but don’t see the point in paying high prices for it. “Over the past 15 years, we have seen a change in the car market in Fort Collins,” Schroeder said. “$10,000 to $15,000 used to be the limit for most people but now we’re selling cars in the $20,000 to $25,000 range.”

The economy is responsible for a good part of the change, obviously. Dawkins is getting more customers who would normally drive down to Denver to take a look at a set of expensive wheels. BMWs 300 series, for example, is usually purchased by what she calls “H-P types” ã high-tech and engineering people who appreciate a well-built car for around $30,000.

Business owners or people doing well in real estate usually prefer the 500 series, which goes for between $43,000 and $47,000, she said. “And then we have the 700 series, which start at $66,000 and can go as high as $105,000 if you want such options as bulletproof glass. Our sales of those are still rather rare.

If a $105,000 price tag seems high, BMW is soon to come out with a new sports car, the Z8. Dawkins has little data on the car, other than word that it has 400 horsepower and sells for $120,000.

“We’ve never had a car that expensive before,” Dawkins said. “But when it becomes available, we will see some people wanting one.”

Who are the people in this market? If you listen to Dawkins and other people in the car business, the people buying pricey vehicles tend to fit into three basic categories. They are either young engineers who want an attractive machine to drive, people in their early 50s rewarding themselves for a long career of hard work, or couples in their 40s with large families.

“[The customers] are mostly high-end professionals and the self-employed. The ages for higher-priced cars are all over the place,´ said Mike Dellenbach, dealer for Dellenbach Motors in Fort Collins. “But most of the ones we see are sold to people 40 years and older.”

These same people are buying sport utility vehicles as well. Sales of SUVs have increased because the vehicles are so handy and because of the increasing number of children, Carroll said. Parents want something big that can hold their families comfortably and something safe. However, they also want performance.

“We will have a [Mitsubishi] Montero coming next year with a V8 engine that will go for $50,000,” Carroll said.

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