British luxury automaker Rolls-Royce has decided to take a page out of Ferrari’s playbook and permanently ban anyone who sells their Spectre EV for a profit. Flipping limited-production cars is a growing problem in the automotive industry. Some deep-pocketed people often snap up allocations of exclusive models with the intention of selling them immediately, hoping for a healthy return on investment. This not only artificially escalates the value in the used car market but also ends up discouraging genuine buyers and affecting the brand’s image. While most top-end carmakers have their own stringent vetting process to select customers for their limited edition models, blacklisting flippers is becoming a popular method to tackle this problem.
“I can tell you we are really sanitizing the need to prove who you are, what you want to do with the car – you need to qualify for a car and then you might get a slot for an order,” said Rolls-Royce CEO Müller-Ötvös during the launch of Spectre in California. “[If they sell the car on] they’re going immediately on a blacklist and this is it – you will never ever have the chance to acquire again.” Unveiled last year as the British marque’s first-ever production EV, the Spectre is proving to be a very popular model for Rolls-Royce. In fact, the Spectre is already sold out till 2025 and the automaker is planning on increasing the production to meet the demand. The company’s CEO claims around 40% are new Rolls-Royce customers.
While Ferrari is famous for permanently blacklisting customers for flipping their cars for a profit, there have been other automakers who have resorted to this tactic. Ford famously made the customers of its GT supercar sign a contract to not sell their cars before two years of ownership. Renowned American wrestler and Hollywood actor John Cena was sued by Ford for breaching the contract, which was later settled out of court. Even GM announced that it will punish customers who flip their Corvette Z06 within a year of purchase.
While this is definitely a positive move by Rolls-Royce, not everyone is happy with the announcement. UK supercar dealer Tom Hartley expressed their disapproval of this new policy adopted by the British luxury carmaker while speaking to Car Dealer Magazine. The dealership said: “I have already agreed to buy two Spectres from customers. I do not think it is fair for car makers to tell customers who have spent close to half a million pounds on a car what they can do with it.”
