We may not think of Lamborghini as a company with much interest in sales volume — that wasn’t its main goal for as long as anyone can remember — but the artisanal supercar batchmaker will aim to double its sales by 2019, Reuters reports. Lamborghini expects to produce 7,000 units a year by this year, owing largely to a long-awaited SUV model, chief executive officer Stefano Domenicali told Reuters this week.
The upcoming SUV, which may or may not be called Urus, will be priced around $200,000 to allow it to compete with other entries in the not-too-wildly-expensive-SUV segment.
The brand’s second SUV (after the LM002) was previewed by the Urus concept at the Beijing motor show in 2012, and at the time it was expected to be powered by a VW Group 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 engine. Powerplants for the upcoming SUV have not been confirmed just yet, but they are expected to be sourced from the Audi and Bentley parts shelves. The SUV is expected to debut in production form in 2018, prior to a likely preview in late 2017 (the Frankfurt motor show is a good candidate for the launch).
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One of the more interesting parts of this plan to boost sales is that supercars will still amount to half, or 3,500 vehicles, of Lamborghini’s annual production, suggesting that the SUV will be the brand’s volume model. Growth will largely be confined to the SUV model; the VW-owned automaker plans to keep all other models capped at just over 3,000 units a year.
The U.S. is expected to be one of the main markets for the Lamborghini SUV; there’s no shortage of demand for premium SUVs in North America at the moment. China is expected to be a major market as well, the current slowdown in that luxury market notwithstanding.
The Lambo SUV won’t be the most expensive SUV on the market when it debuts; by 2019 the Rolls-Royce Cullinan will already be available, expected to be priced well north of Sant’Agata’s sportier offering.