Luxury Insights from Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce with David Bilger and Jim Walker

Paul J Daly: 0:05

David, thank you so much for giving us some of your time today. Just watched you unveil a new Aston Martin. Tell us a little bit about it. It's

‍David Bilger: 0:12

exciting. Yeah, this is the Aston Martin dbx 12. And it's it's new from the ground up. It is new on the outside the sheet metal is has been changed the you still have like that Hallmark s grille, the bond s DB five looks, thinks of the silhouette is still definitely Aston Martin. But there's a lot of new technical enhancements there is like the interior is new. I think that's something that Aston Martin owners have always spoke about the beauty of the interior, but they you know, they're bringing it into a new age now with even more opulence better electronics. Yeah, it's a step up,

Paul J Daly: 0:53

I think. So. Aston Martin buyers are different than for our buyers are different than other other and your company. Your firm really helps identify the differentiations we talk a lot about what's in the consumers mind even like so we a lot of our listeners and viewers are more retail automotive on the non ultra luxury shirt. I guess I say that. So but tell me some of the differences in the Aston Martin customer and how you go about distinguishing those things, I think we can probably take away a few things from a like a psychographic marketing mindset.

David Bilger: 1:25

Aston Martin people like to drive. And you could say that about Porsche people, you can say that about Ferrari people or Lamborghini people. But Aston Martin owners are not always concerned about numbers. And the numbers on the DB 12 are impressive, you know, you're three and a half seconds to 60. And you get class leading 671 horsepower. But the experience for an Aston Martin owner is greater than just the numbers. So Aston Martin owners are guys who will drive on a weekend and they will go for hours out to a beautiful place to have lunch, and maybe stay overnight. It's an experience for an Aston Martin owner. And if they say, Hey, I just want to take a mountain road and I just want to, you know, roll out at a fairly high rate of speed, and then stop at a chateau and enjoy time and eat a wonderful lunch

Paul J Daly: 2:20

sounds like what James Bond does when he's not there, you know, like world dominated.

David Bilger: 2:25

And that's I think that's formed a lot of people's absolutely ideas.

Paul J Daly: 2:28

Well, that makes sense. Because there's so iconic, and the persona of bond. So iconic, it's like, civilized yet Adventure seeking. Yeah. Right. And you kind of like pair those two. And like, I think that people migrate toward that.

David Bilger: 2:40

It's interesting. The history of some of the Aston Martin my my friend actually designed the V 12. L. And the engine, yes, the engine, the original one in the 90s. And he was telling me they did research at the time, and they were talking to owners about their experiences. And it was it was often a I mean, it came up a lot the the experience of going down a little b Road in England, and pulling off to the side, and maybe your indicator light was out or something else happened and you you walked to the local farmhouse and you met a wonderful couple, and you spent the afternoon and you drank wine. And he went what what is this, this is not your typical owner and, and that has also, you know, been kind of the the evolution of Aston Martin. It's, it's in the history of that. Whereas if you look at other performance bent vehicles, it's maybe about being brash or being noticed or being Aston Martin Another thing about Aston Martin actually is it's it can be unnoticed, it can be like a Porsche is very much you see a 911 and all the nine elevens kind of look alike and if you have a performance 911 Or you have a bass 911 Most people see at a gas station that is a 911 Nice Porsche driver. If you're in a Lamborghini boy, you know, people come out and and if you're in an Aston Martin, the people who know know and the people who don't know pass on by kind of just go

Paul J Daly: 4:27

by Are there any plans for electrification? I knew I was gonna get this EVs were the topic and Aston Martin seems like the type of car you want to hear. Yeah, and when you're driving it, but I don't know. Have you heard any

David Bilger: 4:42

is hybrid, actually okay. So it's 998 horsepower. And it is a performance hybrid, but they are working on that technology, they want the hybrid and then the future Eevee to be something special, something very special. So in I there's nothing I can really discuss right now. But I would say Valhalla if you look at it is very much a performance bent vehicle, but it is a hybrid powertrain. Well,

Paul J Daly: 5:11

David, thank you so much for giving us a few minutes of your time, it was a lot of fun to watch the product reveal.

David Bilger: 5:15

I'm gonna go take a closer look at the awesome thank you enjoy.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:19

Sitting here with Jim, the sales manager at Rolls Royce Washington, which is probably not the most typical sales manager job in the world. What sales managers, that's

James Walker: 5:31

for sure. And it's fun.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:33

Yeah, that's awesome. So have has is Highline always been a part of your automotive journey. It

James Walker: 5:38

has been from from day one. My my first job in the car business was Mercedes Benz and BMW. Okay. Yeah. Which is a little different than Rolls Royce.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:47

You've just gone up the expense list ever since then. I

James Walker: 5:51

really have. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:53

So you are here, here at public policy day. And there's a ton of conversation around electric vehicles. And we've got over here sitting behind us the the most recent release of Rolls Royce in their electric vehicle, the specter, tell us a little bit about how that launch has been accepted by the Rolls Royce in that community.

James Walker: 6:16

Well, they, we started taking orders for the car a little over a year ago. We had renderings. People knew what it was going to look like they had an idea of what the price was going to be. Most of the questions were around price and range. They were not willing to commit to a range at that point. They said it would be similar to a gasoline powered Rolls Royce. And it is. And then we finally announced the price and finally announced range and the orders are still coming in. Wow. We're sold out about 18 months of production now. So how if you gave me an order today, you're looking at? What would that be? Summer of 2525?

Kyle Mountsier: 7:01

Yeah. Wow. That's incredible. For a vehicle. It's a it's an over five, half a million dollar view? Yeah, correct. And what's the range on it?

James Walker: 7:10

Well, of course, you know, I'm supposed to say it depends. Right? Right. It depends on temperature and the load and the car and the terrain and so on. But you can figure 300 miles. Yeah. Which is really good for for an electric vehicle. Well, for rolls. I mean, nobody's going to get in the rolls and drive across the country.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:26

Right, exactly. So here's my question. And I think this is important because a lot of a lot of people may look at Highline dealers and go it's just a different world. It's and that in some respects it is, but it's still people buying cars. Talk to me a little bit about the experience. That is not just expected but given when selling and purchasing a Royce

James Walker: 7:49

Rolls Royce, we were just completing of $3 million renovation to our Rolls Royce showroom. And it's all about creating an experience. So there's a bar. Yeah. And in that bar, we have at all we've got an espresso machine, we've got beer, we've got wine, we've got soft drinks, we've got whatever you want to start the process. There's a separate configuration room, which is very private, you go in and close the door. In there are literally hundreds of samples of paint, leathers, stitchings and other things that you can specify treadplates carpet, carpets, headliners, convertible tops, all of these things for a customer to feel in touch. And then I've got computer graphics where I can take their spec and put it up on the screen so they can see exactly what their car is going to look like when it arrives in the store. So that's the beginning. Or it could be the beginning. But generally our customers will go to London and really get the full experience. Wow. So if you fly to London rolls will pick you up at the airport or at your hotel, your choice in a Rolls show for you to the factory. You get lunch or dinner tour of the factory and then a couple of hours to see. Maybe 5060 Rolls Royces that are in production and the various colors and trims that they have, as well as samples of virtually everything rolls has ever done. So it's it's a special experience. A number of my customers have done it and they come back overwhelmed. I'm sure because they do two a day.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:46

Wow. Yeah. So when you get 600 A year

James Walker: 9:49

yeah. So when you're there you get all the attention. It is it is a different

Kyle Mountsier: 9:53

type of experience, but it's still people buying cars getting experience with a human interact thing with them. You right before we jumped in, you were talking to also a lot about what you do in the community to give back and to support the community through charitable works, talk a little bit about like, what you're actually doing well, and how you get that done.

James Walker: 10:14

The sports cars are a critical part of our business. It's, it's supplemental to the Rolls Royce business, but it's rare that we sell a Rolls Royce to someone that doesn't own one or more of our sports cars. So we do for example, a Toys for Tots rally. And every Christmas we had, I think about 100 cars this year, everybody comes with a toy or more, some people come with 20 or 30 toys. We gather that all up for the Marine Corps. And then we drive to the hospital with all these fancy cars. And the kids are waving to us from the Windows knowing of course that their teddy bears on the way up the steps, right? That's so they love seeing the cars and we enjoy doing that for for them and for our customers, given our customers an opportunity to participate in that sort of thing. That's

Kyle Mountsier: 11:04

really cool that you get the it's not just like, you know, a few people from the dealership, it's like, oh, we're no, we're gonna bring the whole customer community in to do this thing. You before our community.

James Walker: 11:13

Yeah. And we'll have in the summer we'll do a what we call dawn patrol, which is the guys come out before the sun comes up. We get all the cars set up and take off to a venue, whether it's a breakfast venue or a winery or something like that. And it costs $150 to do it, but the money all goes to a charity alone and we rotate those. Yeah, so our customers can afford to do it. And it's our way of facilitating that sort of thing. We don't pick the charity they do. I love that. So if we did it for March of Dimes, this time, a customer might say hey, listen, I'd like for you to do the next one for the American Cancer Society. And so we do. That's

Kyle Mountsier: 11:53

amazing. Well, Jim, thanks for sharing a little bit about something that a lot of Not, not a lot of automotive people actually get to experience that you've had a unique purview into. I've

James Walker: 12:03

loved every second of it. You can believe it. Thanks for Thanks for having absolutely appreciate it.

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