Golden Age for ultraluxury brands

Ultraluxury brands Bentley, Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce and Maserati are enjoying unprecedented success as all four set sales records in 2014.

Strong demand for those brands -- as well as for Ferrari and Aston Martin -- has led forecasters to predict that overall global sales in the segment will grow by nearly 40 percent in the next five years.

Boosting sales are new models, improved economic conditions in the U.S. and Europe, and a rising number of superwealthy car buyers.

The bullish sales prediction is good news for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Volkswagen Group and BMW Group, which benefit from the strong profits generated by their ultraluxury subsidiaries.

Last year, Ferrari and Maserati accounted for less than 1 percent of FCA's global vehicle sales, but their combined 664 million euros in operating profit ($754 million at current exchange rates) represented 21 percent of the group's total of 3.2 billion euros ($3.6 billion).

Ferrari's 2014 operating margin was 14 percent of revenues while Maserati's was 9.9 percent.

VW Group's Bentley has not revealed its 2014 financial results, but CEO Wolfgang Duerheimer is confident that the brand's record sales last year will result in a fourth consecutive year of profit.

In 2013, Bentley generated an operating profit of 168 million euros ($191 million at current exchange rates) on revenue of 1.68 billion euros ($1.91 billion), a 10 percent margin.

BMW's Rolls-Royce does not disclose financial figures, but CEO Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes said that the brand is "highly profitable."

What made last year's record sales results at Bentley, Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce and Maserati even more impressive is that they were posted with headwinds, such as the Russian market's major slump and anti-corruption campaigns in China aimed at reducing the consumption of luxury goods.

In Russia, Duerheimer said, Bentley experienced a sales surge late in the year as wealthy customers raced to turn their rapidly weakening rubles into hard assets. Ferrari had its second-best sales year in 2014 after abandoning a self-imposed volume ceiling. Meanwhile, Aston Martin's new owners approved an investment plan to provide new momentum to James Bond's preferred automaker.

All of the brands are getting a lift from the rebounding U.S. economy, which is forecast to account for about one-third of the segment's 2015 global sales of 62,027, according to IHS Automotive data.

By 2018, U.S. sales in the segment are expected to rise another 34 percent to 26,426 vehicles compared with this year. At that point, global demand for ultraluxury cars is forecast to exceed 86,000.

When ultraluxury brand CEOs are asked about rivalries within the segment, they will say that their vehicles are seldom cross-shopped against another model.

"Our competition is a chalet in the Swiss Alps, a beautiful piece of art or a watch," Mueller-Oetvoes of Rolls-Royce said.

Customized models accounted for more than 80 percent of the record 4,063 vehicles delivered last year, and 30 percent of Rolls-Royce customers fly to the company's headquarters in Goodwood, about 65 miles southwest of London, to work side by side with designers on every last detail of their cars, he said.

"We have an airport close by where you can land your private jet," Mueller-Oetvoes said.

Despite being one notch below Rolls in pricing, Bentley is in an enviable position, Duerheimer said.

"No one sells as many cars that cost more than 150,000 euros ($170,000) than we do," he said. As the number of high-net-worth individuals is growing worldwide, so will Bentley sales.

Bentley delivered a record 11,020 cars last year and plans to reach 20,000 by 2020 as it beats rivals such as Maserati, Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce to market with an SUV, the Bentayga.

At Lamborghini, owned by the Volkswagen Group, production is not growing as fast as demand. The Aventador has a seven-month waiting time, and two-thirds of the Huracans ordered last year still need to be delivered, Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann said.

Winkelmann is not putting a ceiling on Lamborghini's sales. The brand set a record last year by boosting deliveries 19 percent to 2,530 vehicles, but its plans to add an SUV have not been approved by its parent company.

While most ultraluxury brands have been chasing sales records, Ferrari in 2013 decided to cap its sales at 7,000 cars a year to preserve exclusivity and profitability.

That strategy was changed last year following an abrupt change in management. Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, Ferrari's chairman for almost a quarter of a century, was ousted last September and replaced a month later by Sergio Marchionne, Fiat Chrysler CEO.

Montezemolo believed in the self-imposed cap. Marchionne does not, therefore 2014 deliveries grew 4 percent to 7,255 vehicles. Ferrari's best sales year to date was 2012, when it sold 7,318 cars. Marchionne is determined to exceed that total as he tries to steer Ferrari toward annual sales of 10,000 by the end of the decade.

The growth plans are even more ambitious at FCA's other ultraluxury brand, Maserati, which more than doubled deliveries to a record 36,448 vehicles last year. The automaker's previous high was 15,393 vehicles sold in 2013. In May, Marchionne increased Maserati's 2018 target to 75,000 vehicles.

Maserati sales were boosted by the addition of the Ghibli in late 2013 Its sticker starts at the relatively modest price of $71,050, including shipping.

Despite the ambitious plans, Ferrari and Maserati sales this year will be "basically stable," Marchionne said. Ferrari is expected to be flat because it will replace its best-selling 458 Italia with the 488 GTB, which debuts at the Geneva auto show this week.

Maserati has no all-new arrival this year as it gears up to launch the Levante -- its first SUV -- in 2016.

Aston Martin is amid a sweeping makeover. The U.K. automaker's main financial backer, Investindustrial S.p.A., has pledged to provide cash for a freshened lineup that Aston Martin will reveal this week in Geneva.

Investindustrial Chairman Andrea Bonomi, whose private equity firm bought a 37.5 percent stake in the automaker in 2012, told Bloomberg in January that Aston Martin "has the potential to build 7,000 to 8,000 units a year." IHS estimates Aston may double annual sales to more than 6,000 in 2018 from about 3,400 last year.

Douglas A. Bolduc, Nick Gibbs, Bloomberg and Reuters contributed to this report.