New Ferrari PH: Gray market or older units can enroll for service

At long last, the new Ferrari Philippines is up and running. It was almost exactly a year ago since we first published the story that Ferrari was changing hands in the Philippines to a new company that is part of San Miguel. Yes, Ramon S. Ang -himself an avid Ferrari collector- is taking over as the new head of Ferrari here.

Last Friday, Velocita Motors officially opened its doors with a grand event to announce its start of operations. Actually, the facility they inaugurated on EDSA Wack-Wack is a temporary one, as the permanent facility will be about a kilometer away as the crow flies on Connecticut Street.

The event was led by RSA, Ferrari Far East & Middle East head Dieter Knechtel, as well as executives from Velocita Motors headed by industry veteran Japheth Castillo as General Manager. It also saw the arrival of the Ferrari 296 GTS in the Philippines as well as the Purosangue... Ferrari's first SUV-ish model

As with any changeover from one dealer to another, the question many want to ask is: What about service for existing Ferrari customers?

The answer is simple: Velocita Motors will service your Ferrari, but your car will need to be enrolled into their system.

Velocita’s Japheth Castillo confirmed to us that most of the older cars in the Philippines are already recognized by Ferrari, so that’s not a problem. For others -particularly for vehicles not imported by Ferrari- there may (or will) be a fee depending on the vehicle.

When brands change hands in the mainstream automobile sector, it’s pretty straightforward: just come in and you will be serviced—business as usual. But in the luxury sector, often it’s not that simple because of several factors, particularly the presence of the gray market.

While gray market imports aren’t as big an issue among the mainstream brands, it definitely is a key point of discussion with official distributors or official dealers in the luxury sector. We were told that Velocita Motors will allow the enrollment for service of other Ferrari models not bought through them, but it will incur a fairly significant fee. From what we understand, it may be up to 10% of the SRP of the vehicle.

There is actually a good precedent for this. When Lexus first opened in the Philippines in 2009, they put forth a PHP 500,000 enrollment fee for customers who bought a car from the gray market after the dealer opened to discourage the practice of buying from the gray market. A few years later they updated the policy to PHP 500,000 or 10% of SRP, whichever may be higher.

Given that one of the key executives of SMC’s growing luxury automobile division is formerly of Lexus, it’s no surprise that such a policy is what they adopted.

If you need your Ferrari enrolled, give Velocita Motors a call.