I'm not worried about the 1 percent, but who's looking after the 0.1 percent? BMW, that's who.
Thanks to an investment of around $80 million, BMW has opened a 376,736-square-foot dealership in Abu Dhabi, the world’s largest showroom for BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and BMW motorcycles. That's the size of six and a half football fields, including end zones, by the way.
The hangar-sized facility was opened by Ian Robertson, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, responsible for Sales and Marketing, His Highness Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, National Security Advisor and Vice-Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, and Arno Husselmann, General Manager of Abu Dhabi Motors, the sole importer of BMW in the region. The building is located in Umm Al Nar and houses separate showrooms and sales areas for the three premium automobile brands.
More than 450 staff members will work at the facility. The new showroom will allow customers to view the brands’ entire model line-up in different colours and different option packages, with more than 70 automobiles and 10 motorcycles on permanent display. This will be complemented by an extensive range of newer pre-owned vehciles and a state-of-the-art service area equipped with the latest technology. The workshop will be able to perform maintenance on up to 120 vehicles simultaneously.
The investor and owner of the facility are Sheikh Mohammed Bin Butti Al Hamid and Sheikh Saif Bin Mohammed Bin Butti Al-Hamid. Thanking them for their commitment to the brand, BMW boss said: “The Middle East is an important region for the BMW Group. We sold more vehicles here in 2011 than ever before. There is tremendous future growth potential in many countries in this region and in the United Arab Emirates in particular,” Robertson added.
In case you're wondering, there were 668,800 cars registered in Abu Dhabi in 2009 and drivers paid $1.97 a gallon for fuel. However, if they popped over the border to Oman it was only 31 cents.––Paul Duchene
