????今夏早些時候，年銷量只有幾千輛，但單品價格高達幾十萬美元的意大利超級跑車品牌蘭博基尼宣布將推出一款運動型多用途車。這款看上去棱角分明的概念車叫做Urus，曾于2012年在北京首次亮相。它的外形擁有蘭博基尼汽車固有的花花公子風格：銳利的線條、加寬的輪圈、賽車的美感。其規格讓一眾博客大為驚嘆：它擁有600馬力引擎，盡管車高不夠突出（還不到6英尺），離地凈高卻相當可觀。

????在20世紀80年代，蘭博基尼曾經嘗試過推出一款流行的SUV，即類似于悍馬的LM002，不過最終失敗了。這一次蘭博基尼卷土重來，顯得信心滿滿。

????公司表示，SUV的銷量將會促使蘭博基尼的銷量在一夜之間翻番，達到一年6000輛，并讓這家以品種單調著稱的公司變得多元化。他們認為：那些擁有蘭博基尼超級跑車，可能會在需要更多空間時駕駛其他公司豪華SUV的客戶，現在可以把SUV升級成為擁有同樣意大利風格的蘭博基尼產品。

????2018年開售后，大量Urus可能會出現在曼哈頓、洛杉磯或莫斯科的街頭。不過，這款SUV最大的潛在市場還是中國。中國消費者的鑒賞力正在以前所未有的方式推動，甚至影響奢侈品制造商的決策，汽車制造商更是首當其沖。

????寄望中國推動業績增長

????盡管中國經濟已經開始放緩，但透過這款蘭博基尼SUV，我們有機會一窺那些依賴中國提升業績的行業的真實狀況。唱衰中國經濟的人沒有注意到的是，中國消費者的支出正在提高，這就是為什么出現在報刊頭條的中國GDP增長速度其實并沒有表面上那么糟。例如，中國國家統計局的數據顯示，今年上半年消費者服務行業增長了近8.5%，而工業產值只增長了6.1%。如今，服務業占中國50%的GDP，雖然低于美國的80%，卻仍有增長之勢。中國消費者的購買力正在變得更加強勁。

????正是出于這一背景，跨國公司紛紛開始迎合中國消費者的品味，從電子產品（蘋果公司首席執行官蒂姆?庫克承認，中國是蘋果推出金色款iPhone和金色款蘋果手表的重要原因 ）到食品（可口可樂在中國推出的美汁源果粒橙迅速引起轟動，可能將走出中國市場），再到汽車，不一而足。

????蘭博基尼表示，該公司推出這款SUV的原因很簡單，那就是SUV目前太火爆了。該公司首席執行官史蒂芬?溫克爾曼在本月接受汽車新聞網站Autoblog采訪時表示：“在全球范圍內，SUV領域仍在快速發展。”

????現在提問：全球最大的汽車市場是哪里？答案是中國。那么中國發展最快的汽車領域是什么？答案是SUV。

????所以溫克爾曼可以更直接地說：“中國是我們繼美國之后的第二大市場，他們愛上了SUV，我們不敢錯失這個機會。”

????中國喜愛SUV及其代表的一切——馬路上的崇高地位，掌控力量的感覺，駛出城市、爬上山坡的無拘無束。在今年第一季度，中國幾乎一半的新上牌車輛都是SUV。中國如今是全球最大的SUV市場。中國汽車工業協會的數據顯示，去年全國的SUV銷量增長近30%，而轎車銷量只增長了約10%。有趣的是，也有傳聞稱，豪華SUV不如豪華轎車那樣招搖——中國政府轟轟烈烈的反腐運動也給SUV營造了發展良機。

????保時捷就是這種新思維的典范。在北京和上海的富有社區，保時捷卡宴隨處可見。去年，保時捷卡宴在華銷量幾乎占其總銷量的三分之一，中國輕松地成為這款豪華SUV的最大市場?？ㄑ绲臒徜N也推動保時捷在中國的整體銷量提升了25%。2010年至今，保時捷在中國的銷量增至三倍，去年中國的整體銷量只比美國少了不到100輛。

????在中國，保時捷卡宴的銷售取得了巨大的成功。不過隨著中國富豪數不斷增長，中國政府持續推進針對炫耀性消費的反腐運動，保時捷推出了另一種更廉價的選擇。2014年，保時捷推出了Macan SUV，裝備了可供選擇的四缸發動機，這是保時捷20年來第一次這么做。Macan在中國的售價幾乎只有卡宴的一半，部分原因是降低了汽車排量的稅費。研究機構IHS表示，Macan上市不到一年就在中國賣出了9374輛，超過了其他任何國家。IHS還預計該款車型在2015年的銷量會增至三倍，達到2.9376萬輛。

????保時捷并非唯一調整產品線以符合中國需求的汽車制造商。寶馬和梅賽德斯-奔馳也紛紛推出更小款式的SUV。與此同時，重新設計船型林肯大陸SUV時，福特一心想的是中國市場。在今年接受《洛杉磯時報》采訪時，一位福特副總裁表示：“這不是為美國市場開發的車型，我們會看看它在中國的表現。汽車的后排座椅設計優先考慮了中國消費者的需求?！?/p>

????到目前為止，福特這種明確為中國設計車型的行為只是個別案例，還談不上行業潮流。香港汽車咨詢公司Dunne Automotive的首席執行官邁克爾?鄧恩在郵件中表示：“蘭博基尼和其他汽車制造商正在討好中國消費者，但仍然緊緊遵循著自身的傳統和品牌特色?！?/p>

????不過已經有證據證實，蘭博基尼這樣的汽車制造商在決策時會充分考慮中國因素。

????蘭博基尼和保時捷一樣，都由大眾汽車集團所有。該集團是毛澤東逝世，中國改革開放以后第一家進入中國的汽車制造商。如今，中國是這家公司的最大市場，他們有適合所有消費者的品牌：奧迪（政府官員喜愛的車型）、斯柯達（普通百姓品牌）、大眾（普通百姓的升級品牌）、保時捷（新貴人群）、蘭博基尼（年輕奔放的有錢人）和賓利（富豪人群）。

????這樣的品牌廣度讓大眾汽車獲得了規模經濟效益，大眾正在開發新的蘭博基尼和賓利SUV，架構類似于新的保時捷卡宴。IHS Automotive上海辦公室的高級顧問薩博尼表示：“小投資卻能帶來大收益——這也許是大眾集團推出蘭博基尼SUV帶來的最大影響。我們確實認為這款SUV會推動蘭博基尼在中國的銷量。”

????蘭博基尼發言人劉娜（音譯）表示：“顯然，新車會利用大眾集團提供的協同效應。然而它會是擁有我們品牌傳統的真正的蘭博基尼車型?！币韵率聦嵶C明了她的觀點：蘭博基尼、保時捷和賓利的SUV都會在歐洲本地工廠生產——這對中國消費者來說，也是榮譽感的一部分。

????許多人指出，蘭博基尼幾年前選擇在北京發布這款SUV的概念車型絕非巧合。Urus理應在全球最火爆的SUV市場揭開面紗。

????接下來唯一的問題就是中國消費者是否會喜歡它了。（財富中文網）

????譯者：嚴匡正

????審校：任文科

????Earlier this summer, Lamborghini, the Italian supercar brand that counts annual car sales in the thousands but price tags in the hundreds of thousands, announced it was building a sport utility vehicle. The angular-looking concept version called Urus, unveiled for the first time in Beijing in 2012, had the same built-for-playboys appearance as Lamborghini’s cars: sharp lines, wide rims, race-car aesthetics. Blogs marveled at the specs: it houses a 600-horsepower engine and sports ample ground clearance despite its relatively modest height (just shy of six feet).

????Lamborghini already tried and failed once to market a popular SUV in the 1980s, with what became the Hummer-like LM002. This time Lamborghini is more confident.

????It says SUV sales will double total Lamborghini sales practically overnight, to 6,000 vehicles a year, and diversify a famously un-diverse company. The idea: Customers who own its supercars, but drive another company’s luxury SUV when they need more space beyond a tiny front-trunk, would upgrade to a Lambo SUV with the same Italian styling.

????After Lamborghini starts selling the Urus in 2018, many may pop up in Manhattan or Los Angeles. Probably many in Moscow, too. But the biggest potential market for the SUV is located in China, where Chinese tastes are boosting and even influencing luxury goods makers more than ever, and automakers most of all.

????Looking to China for growth

????Lamborghini’s SUV provides a window into what’s happening at several industries relying on China for growth even as its economy slows. Lost amid the talk about China’s sputtering economic engine is that the rise in consumer spending is a big reason why the headline GDP growth figures aren’t worse than they are. In the first half of the year, for instance, consumer services grew almost 8.5%, while industrial output lagged behind at 6.1% growth, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics. Services are now 50% of GDP, trailing the U.S.’s 80% figure, but still growing. Chinese consumers are ever more powerful.

????Multinationals, in turn, play to Chinese tastes in everything from electronics (the Chinese were a big reason for gold iPhones and

gold Apple watches, Apple CEO Tim Cook has said) to food (Coke’s Chinese hit, a milky orange drink, may expand abroad) to cars.

????Lamborghini said it is offering an SUV because SUVs are a hot seller in general. “The SUV segment is still fast growing worldwide,” Lamborghini’s CEO Stephan Winkelmann told Autoblog this month.

????Now ask: What’s the world’s largest automotive market? The answer is China. And what’s the fastest growing auto segment in China? SUVs.

????So Winkelmann could have said, more directly, ‘China, our second biggest market after the U.S., is falling in love with SUVs and we don’t dare miss that.’

????China loves SUVs and all they stand for—elevated status on the road, a sense of power, the freedom to take a hard right out of city traffic and scale the nearest mountain. In the first quarter almost half of new vehicle registrations in China were for SUVs. China is now the largest SUV market in the world. SUV sales rose more than 30% in the country last year while passenger cars sales climbed only around 10%, says China’s Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Anecdotally, you also hear that luxury SUVs are less ostentatious than luxury sedans—good at a time when there’s an anti-corruption movement underway in the central government.

????Porsche is the exemplar of this new automotive thinking. In the wealthy areas of Beijing and Shanghai, Porsche Cayenne SUVs appear to be parked on every corner. Last year Porsche shipped almost one-third its total Cayenne production to China, easily the SUV’s largest market, helping Porsche’s overall China sales increase by 25%. Since 2010, Porsche has almost tripled its sales in China, where its sales trailed the U.S. last year by fewer than 100 vehicles.

????Porsche has had remarkable success selling the large Cayenne there. But as the numbers of China’s rich expand and the country’s anti-corruption campaign continues targeting conspicuous consumption, Porsche has offered another, cheaper option. The Macan SUV was released in 2014, equipped with an optional four-cylinder engine, Porsche’s first in two decades, and sold for almost 50% less than the Cayenne in China partly because of reduced taxes on engine size. The Macan sold more vehicles in China— 9,374— than any other country in its abbreviated first year, says researcher IHS, which estimates China sales of the model to triple to 29,376 in 2015.

????Porsche isn’t the only automaker changing its lineup in ways that align with Chinese demand. BMW and Mercedes Benz have also offered smaller versions of their SUVs. Ford, meanwhile, is re-introducing the boat-sized Lincoln Continental with China squarely in mind. “This is not a vehicle we developed for the U.S. and then said, ‘We will see how it does in China,'” a Ford group vice president told the Los Angeles Times this year. “The rear seat was designed for the Chinese customer first and foremost.”

????For now, Ford designing explicitly for China remains the exception, not the rule. “Lamborghini and others are building for Chinese buyers but keeping tightly faithful to their original heritage and brand cues,” Michael Dunne, CEO of Hong Kong-based auto consultant Dunne Automotive, wrote in an email.

????But there’s evidence automakers like Lamborghini are making decisions with China close in mind.

????Lamborghini, like Porsche, is ultimately owned by Volkswagen Group, which was the first automaker to break into China as the country opened to world following Mao Zedong’s death. Today China is the German company’s largest market, and VW has brands for everyone: Audi (government officials’ preferred cars), Skoda (ordinary folks), VW (ordinary folks’ upgraded ride), Porsche (nouveau riche), Lamborghini (young, rich, wild), and Bentley (just rich).

????That breadth gives Volkswagen economies of scale, and the company is developing new Lamborghini and Bentley SUVs on the same architecture as the next Porsche Cayenne. “Small investment but big profit return—that maybe the biggest influence for VW group to roll out” Lamborghini’s SUV, says Boni Sa, senior consultant at IHS Automotive in Shanghai. “We do expect the Lamborghini SUV to incentive the sales of Lambo in China.”

????“Of course the new car will make use of the synergies the Volkswagen Group offers,” says Lamborghini spokeswoman Liu Na. “Nevertheless it will be a true Lamborghini in line with our brand DNA.” Bolstering her point: Lamborghini, Porsche, and Bentley’s SUVs will be built at home in European factories—which, for Chinese consumers, is a big part of the prestige of buying one.

????Many have pointed out that Lamborghini picking Beijing to unveil the concept version of its SUV several years ago was no accident. The Urus should be released in the world’s hottest market for SUVs.

????Now the only question is if Chinese buyers will like it.