GLOBAL LAUNCH OF AUTOMOTIVE ATELIER A.R.E.S. - A new benchmark for performance, design and expectations in luxury car market?

This week a new multinational luxury brand was born in Italy. A.R.E.S, a luxury automotive atelier based in Modena (Italy), was officially launched on the 23rd of June 2014.

A.R.E.S aims at creating unique, handcrafted, high-performance cars, ensuring that aesthetics and performance combine to provide customers with an unlimited wealth of bespoke car exterior and interior design, as well as engineering innovations.

A.R.E.S has brought together a highly talented international team with years of experience at some of the industry’s most respected companies, including ex-Lotus Lead Designer Mihai Panaitescu and former Mercedes-Benz AMG COO Wolf Zimmermann. As Head Designer and Chief Technical Officer of the company, their combined aim is to give customers a feel-good sensation that goes beyond anything they have experienced so far.

“In the super high-end industry, luxury car makers only go so far in terms of individuality. We are the people to talk to when it comes to taking this individuality to the next level,” states A.R.E.S CTO Wolf Zimmermann.

To achieve this goal, A.R.E.S uses traditional Italian handcraftsmanship along with German engineering knowledge and advanced technology from yacht building to develop cars that are perfectly tailored to the values and lifestyle of each individual customer.

"People have different needs and tastes. We create products that are perfectly tailored to our customer," says Mihai Panaitescu.

“We want to satisfy our clients with the best cars on the market,” tells Leo Birke, Managing Director at ARES. "So we asked ourselves: What is missing on the market right now? We looked around, combined our observations with our passion and created this very new automotive atelier concept. It made us think about Savile Row, suits, even haute couture. As a company, ARES can offer anything from – using the analogy – a shirt, to its buttons, up to the whole custom made outfit.”

The current design range of A.R.E.S is made up of a fully modified Aston Martin Rapide S, a Bentley Continental GT W12, an Aston Martin Vanquish, a Range Rover Vogue and a Range Rover Sport.

However, this is not the end of A.R.E.S ambitions according to Wolf Zimmermann: "There are a lot of new cars and new ideas that we already have in the pipeline and A.R.E.S is also looking forward to build its own cars in the future.”

Some of these new projects include one of a kind Shooting Brakes from Aston Martin and Bentley respectively, a Lamborghini Huracán, a Rolls-Royce Wraith and a Rolls-Royce Ghost II.

" A.R.E.S is the best of all worlds. It is a very high-end concept. We like to take the best of the essence of a car and bring it out even more. We work with a lot of very beautiful cars but sometimes those cars can be so much more than that. We like to approach things from this perspective,” adds Panaitescu.

While not being limited to OEM restrictions in design and technology, A.R.E.S plans to go beyond these and delivers the complete supply chain from individual planning, developing, manufacturing and servicing the customer, with the first cars on sale worldwide immediately.

So, will the this new luxury brand be successful in the Middle East and GCC region?

Well, the chances are not too bad as the interior and exterior of the Aston Martin Rapide S, the Bentley Continental GT W12, the Aston Martin Vanquish, the Range Rover Vogue and the Range Rover Sport could very well find lot of fans in the Arab world. And although there are not too many mountain roads or fast ‘Autobahn’ roads in the Middle East region, I recommend that A.R.E.S. would offer the Range Rover Vogue with bigger and better brakes capable of handling the extra-power which A.R.E.S. offers in this beautiful and elegant vehicle.

But in order to be successful and competitive in the Middle East region, A.R.E.S. needs to have competent and professional partners and also have a much better marketing and business plan than the other well-known premium tuners in the region and avoid the mistakes they have done when entering the profitable and huge Middle Eastern luxury car market.

MS
25.06.2014
Modena – Cairo - Dubai