Ah well, perhaps this is another sign that the financial storm of the last 7-8 years is over, ‘bling’ is back in.
The financial storm didn’t really impact the target audience
That’s true in some respects and not in others, pre-crash ‘Bling’ was very much in vogue, Rap Stars, Pop Stars, Footballers, Media Mogals and to a lessor extent famous business types like the Dragons and such. In years gone by famous types would usualy downplay their wealth through fear of alienating their fans, but 2000-2008ish that all changed success and wealth was something you flaunted and us muggles (well perhaps not us personally) played along, more people than ever were buying ‘aspirational lifestyles’ with borrowed money – lots of white things mostly, apart from skin which was tanned, very tanned.
When the crash happened, whilst a lot of famous people could still buy white Range Rovers and Bentley’s then did less so as it wasn’t so ‘cool’ in 2009 to be seen being overtly wealthy when you’re trying to sell your latest book/cd/film/football shirt to people who no longer feel wealthy and are hoping they won’t lose their jobs. Of course some of them went down the same drain as more everyday people who over-borrowed, C-listers like Kerry Katona and the like who had lots of profile, but little product to sell suddenly found themselves unable to borrow any more for this years tax bill and were made Bankrupt.
In the Western World anyway that’s the target audience for this car, now (it seems) we’re all wealthy again they can get away with driving about in something like that without people hating them, ‘old money’ types won’t be seen in one (unless they’re paid to be), although I believe this particular Tarts Palace on wheels was primarily designed for the Far East where they do things differently, bigger is better and flashier is best. I think for a time Bentley wasn’t even going to bother to build it to pass regulations for Europe.