The resources industry’s nouveau riche are not all ploughing their incomes into shares and real estate. Many of them are seeking more immediate rewards for their efforts, and as a result, many of the Australian agents for luxury cars, boats and other goods are struggling to import enough product to keep up with the voracious demand.

Edward Rowe, public relations manager for Ateco Automotive, the Australian importer for Ferrari, Maserati and Alfa Romeo, told MiningNewsPremium.net there had been a particularly noticeable growth in demand from the company’s WA and Queensland customers.

“Unquestionably, WA and Queensland have been disproportionately stronger than the rest of the country,” Rowe said. “We still sell more cars in Victoria and New South Wales, but when you take into account the respective populations – particularly in WA – the markets there have been much stronger proportionally than other parts of the country.

“Demand has been running well ahead of supply for both Maserati and Ferrari. With Maserati, we entered 2008 with an order book for the Gran Tourismo (a two-door, four-seater) that alone was larger than last year’s entire Maserati sales.

“The Quattroporte nearly doubled its sales last year, and we see that continuing,” he said.

“With Ferrari, it’s a matter of having waiting lists. We launched a new version of the F430 last year – the F430 Scuderia – and we’re sitting on 80 orders for a car that will cost $550,000 plus on road costs.”

He said prospective owners would have to wait for up to two years for their new F430 Scuderia.

But Rowe said the middle part of the market – Alfa Romeo and Citroen (a brand also imported by Ateco) – was beginning to wane slightly.

“During the last six to eight weeks, as interest rates have begun to bite, we’ve seen WA and Queensland slow down, but essentially [those states] come back to where the market is in the rest of the country.”

Mercedes Benz senior manager, corporate communications David McCarthy told MNP WA is showing a definite trend towards faster growth than other states in the sales of their more expensive models, which was mostly attributable to the resources industry in one form or another.

He said strong sales in Queensland were also attributable to mining, but these figures were also bolstered by a strong real estate market.

“We sell vehicles [ranging in price] from $19,990 – which is the smart – up to half a million dollars, which is the S65,” McCarthy said. “The coupe, the CL63, we sold 11 of them in the last year (Australia-wide) and they are $384,000.”

At BMW, the brand has enjoyed a 101% increase in sales over the last three years Australia-wide.

“Yes, oil, gas and resources have been areas where we’ve found some considerable growth,” according to Darrin Brandon, dealer principal at Perth BMW dealer Auto Classic.

“It’s mining people who have been deployed here by their companies – the upper management and executive level – they come from the east, the UK or South Africa or the United States.

“In the past, Western Australia didn’t have many big [mining] company offices, but now they all seem to be moving major parts of their offices to this state.”

Brandon made similar observations to Rowe regarding sales in recent weeks.

“We’ve had a bit of an aberration for the last two months,” he said. “Interest rates and some wild fluctuations in the stock market have affected things a bit, but I think we’ll get over that in the next 12 weeks.

“And as far as resources go, I think demand from the likes of China and India will continue – they’re not making any more of this stuff,” Brandon said.

In recent years, new-found resources wealth has also been directed at the boating industry; however boat sales have been so strong that there is now a severe shortage of boat pens in the Perth area, which in turn is hampering boat sales.

Martin Box, who has been selling boats in WA for more than 30 years, told MNP the shortage of pens was damaging his business.

“Three years ago we were going through the roof in sales,” Box said. “Now we’ve come to this situation where there are no berths available. Even Mandurah is now chock-a-block. People are aware of this and they’ve just stopped buying boats.

“But we’ve sold a lot of joint ownerships in the last couple of years, that’s become really popular, but at present, Perth desperately needs another 1000 berths,” he said.

Dave Farrant, manager of the WA distributor of Sea-Doo jet skis and Can Am four-wheel motorbikes, told MNP that his business and its counterpart on the Gold Coast enjoyed the biggest sales of personal water craft in the country.

“We certainly deal with a lot of mining industry people – whether it’s owners of companies or the guys doing fly-in, fly-out,” he said. “There were 800 jet skis registered in WA in 2007, which is almost double the amount of the year before.”