Thinking about the vast amount of wealth you’d need not only to buy a Rolls-Royce but also to live the lifestyle it entails, one may think you’d probably be able to afford one only after decades of hard work. As it turns out though, the average Rolls-Royce owner is not that old, according to a new report. The company itself claims that the average age of a Rolls-Royce owner is around 45, which is a lot younger than many people think.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Rolls-Royce Chief Executive Officer Torsten Müller-Ötvös was rather excited to share the news that the average buyer of a Rolls-Royce machine is getting younger quite fast, prompting a future change in the way the company approaches its customers. “We are seeing, in that segment of ultrahigh-end-growth individuals, a fast decrease in average age,” Müller-Ötvös said. “It’s fantastic, it really is.”
With the average age of 45, Rolls-Royce customers are 11 years younger today than they were in 2010. Furthermore, they are younger than the average new car buyer at 52 and the average luxury car owner at 50, according to studies done by KBB. Not only that but even compared to buyers of considerably cheaper cars, the double R crowd is rather young. For example, the average age of a Buick customer is 59, that drops to 52 for Cadillac, 51 for Mercedes-Benz and 50 for BMW. Even Bentley has a considerable older crowd to appeal to, with an average age of 56 in 2014.
And while you may think that all of this is due to inherited money, according to Rolls-Royce that’s no longer the case. At least, not in the majority. “It’s not any longer inherited money,” Torsten Müller-Ötvös said. “The majority is all self-generated money in very young people who are already making fortunes, be it real estate, be it engineering, be it IT, be it Western entertainment, whatever.” What that means for the future is that Rolls-Royce might have to start offering cars more attractive to younger audiences and we may seem more variations of the Wraith in this regard.
