Multimillion deals on wheels

In the race to own the most outstanding vehicles available, some buyers even fork out over the necessary huge sums without visiting the showroom.

Adel al Marzoqi, the owner of Princess Cars showroom in Abu Dhabi, imports high-end luxury and sports cars.

ABU DHABI // Adel al Marzoqi received a telephone call recently requesting one of the most exclusive cars in the world - a Ferrari Enzo.
"Would you like to come and see it?" Mr Marzoqi asked, already knowing the answer. "No, just deliver it and we will send you the money, in cash," said the man on the phone.
The Enzo would cost aboutDh3 million (US$820,000) if bought straight from Ferrari. But due to limited supply and high demand in the UAE, Mr Marzoqi sold it for double that price.
"It is all about the exclusiveness," said the 36-year-old.
And the Dh6m Enzo, named after the company's founder, is but one example of what enthusiasts are prepared to pay.
Sales of high-end, freakishly expensive motors are rising, despite the global financial turmoil. Italian car maker, Maserati, reported this weekend that sales had tripled in the GCC in the past two years, while demand elsewhere faltered. The company said it expected GCC trade to hit seven per cent of global business by 2009, up from 3.5 per cent only two years ago. The UAE accounts for 40 per cent of that figure, most of them from the car-maker's Gulf distribution hub in Dubai.
Evidence of the Emirates' love affair with high-performance cars is all around. Roads throng with the world's most luxurious vehicles, weaving full-throttle through traffic, their owners anonymous behind tinted windows.
At his Abu Dhabi dealership, Princess Cars, Mr Marzoqi keeps a cash counter by the phone. There is another next to the chief of sales' desk. The machines count the millions of dirham notes that are dropped on the desk by cash-rich customers.
Fast cars and fast cash go hand in hand. Princess sells luxury vehicles including Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, Mercedes, BMW, Lamborghini and Maserati, to name but a few.
"The car you drive defines you, and people always want to stand out, so I started bringing in the most exclusive cars and cater to those who want to stand out," said Mr Marzoqi.
He was the first dealer to bring the Enzo to the UAE in 2005 - there are only 399 of the beasts in the world.
"Even if you have the money, you can't just get an Enzo, there has to be a history between you and the Ferrari company. You had to own at least two previous Ferraris to be able to get an Enzo," Mr Marzoqi said. "If you are seen driving an Enzo, you are sending a message to the people on the road that you are special."
And the lust for luxury extends well beyond the rich and famous. Hussain, a 24-year-old PR executive in Dubai, who drives a turbocharged Range Rover, believes the passion is as much about competing with your peers as about affordability.
"Here in the UAE, particularly among young men, there's an element of competitiveness. If one guy is driving a nice car then the other guy wants to buy an even better, even nicer one," he said.
Cheap fuel prices, he believes, are also another big draw for choosing a car with a larger, faster engine. "Europeans and westerners drive big cars here in the UAE. If they were living at home then the cost of fuel would mean they couldn't afford to keep such a car. But here it's affordable."
Ziad Tariq, 22, comes from a family of car enthusiasts. He, his brother and father buy new cars at least once every two years and have six between them. "We have a 350Z modified Nissan 2007, an E240 Mercedes 2007, a BMW 740 2007, an IS 300 2007 and a Nissan Pedro 2007," he said. "We also always have a 4x4 for the desert - so every time we change it, it's for something stronger and faster.
"The fuel prices are low here, yes, but it's also a fashion statement. When we switch cars we don't just upgrade to a newer model, we try something different. All of my friends do something similar. I don't believe it's something that is cultural, it is just a passion that has been in my family for years."
In the past 10 years, Mr Marzoqi turned a hobby of collecting miniature car models into a multimillion dirham business of life-size cars. He travels regularly to Europe and the US in search of exclusive cars.
"I found this in the US," he said, pointing to a purple Lamborghini Diablo, a collectable car from the 1990s. "My whole family, including my sisters, collect luxury cars. It is fun."
Mr Marzoqi owns 10 cars, but mostly drives a red Bentley, with the licence plate 91. It cost Dh3m, and signifies the year he started collecting cars professionally. "It is not enough these days to have a nice car, you need the exclusive plate to match," he said.
Visiting Princess Cars to gawp at merchandise has turned into a pastime for groups of young men and women. "Unlike other luxury car dealers where people have to make appointments to be allowed inside to look at cars, my showroom is open to everyone," said Mr Marzoqi. "The ones who are buying don't even bother to come to look at the cars, they just buy them over the phone."
For the year 2008, the Porsche Cayenne was the most popular, with 12 sold. Ferrari came in second with six sales. The Dh3m Mercedes McLaren SLR 722 is currently the most popular, with the UAE and GCC nationals requesting white. Also up for grabs is a Dh10m blue Maserati.
Most of them were bought by UAE customers, sheikhs, GCC royals, Aryam, the singer, and Sheikh Khalid al Qassimi, the World Rally Championship driver, with customers from the post-Soviet republics and Japan making up the rest.
Mr Marzoqi's two-year-old son, Mohammed, is restricted to playing with a toy version of the SLR Mercedes for the moment. But "when old enough", his father is handing over his car showroom to his son. "It will remain in the family," he said. Its name, "Princess", is unique name among UAE car showrooms that traditionally carry more masculine names and was inspired by his white Lamborghini.
"She was truly a princess among the other cars I drove, so I named the car showroom in her honour. "Everyone deserves to drive his own princess, or at least a chance to have a look at one," he said.
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