Ferne

Usual office chit-chat has lead to the question "How much does it actually cost to make a car"?
Not a kit car or home made job - one off a production line.
Anyone know?

Scooby96

I've often wondered this but due to the commercially sensitive nature of this information i doubt that we would ever know the true cost of building a car.

I also want to know how much Porsche pay for the brakes they use, same for other enhanced parts of other performance cars like Ferrari (how much are the ceramic discs for the Enzo for example) and how much would Joe Bloggs have to pay in comparison to Ferrari?

But then I could just be sad annorak with nothing better to do!!!

Rob Walker

I wonder how much it would cost to build a car buying all the parts seperately from the parts counter at the dealers.. probably about 10 times what it costs to buy the car new..

Tiggs

i remeber a bike mag doing this once....i think it cost 25k to build a 6k bike with seperate bits.

-=Buzz=-

I'll tell you this for not many £'s - it's costing me a bloody fortune for you to have the car you've got my dear...

(NB anyone reading this - Ferne is my long suffering "better half" )

Scooby96

Ferne Britten - must be spending a small fortune on new shocks every couple of weeks!!

Ferne

Thanks for that!!!!! So no-one really knows then - someone, somewhere must have some inside info.

yoza

I know exactly how much down to the last cent(as of 01.01.2002), that it costs to make a 2.0L, 2.5 and 3.0L 'X' Type Jaguar. Obviously the cost varies depending on the spec.

But Im not allowed to say.

But dont think its wads, and wads of money, the profit margin is surprisingly small.

Ferne

Awww go on - whisper it to me, I won't tell!

Stephen Read

With a resonable understanding of 'accounting priciples' (YAWN!) you will quickly appreciate that without access to the confidential accounts of each manufacturer, you'll never get 'the real answer'.

There is so much scope to manipulate the figures and manufacturers are under no legal obligation to disclose the relative profitability of individual models.

The main issue though is the intangible costs such as the allocation of any capitalised development costs and tooling.

Then, once they have built the car they still need to sell it and incredibly, if you are Alfa Romeo, you might find that if you divide your total UK advertising costs by the number of cars you actually sell, it works out at about £1K per vehicle sold!