Lamborghini President and CEO Stephan Winkelmann didn’t have much to say at the company’s press conference at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, but it was still well worth attending.

Winkelman announced that the company sold a record 2430 cars in 2008 and opened up 15 more dealerships. The highlight, however, was the cars, two of which (the LP640 and LP560-4) featured a stunning new matte blue color offered as a part of Lamborghini’s Ad Personam personalization program.

Front and center sat the company’s latest car, the LP560-4 Spider in matte-white (Bianco Canopus). Lamborghini als offers two other matte finishes, a matt-luster black called Nero Nemesis and a matte brown finish called Marrone Apus.

“Ad Personam offers every Lamborghini customer the opportunity to acquire a completely exclusive vehicle from a unique brand – one that is perfectly in tune with their own lifestyle,” said Winkelmann. “A super sports car from Lamborghini is always a fundamental expression of the buyer’s personality. And that is why the highest levels of exclusivity are possible, right through to absolute one-of-a-kind Lamborghini vehicles.”

Along with the three different Lamborghini models, there were also three models of the female variety.

Official release after the jump:

Following in the footsteps of Ferrari and its Challenge series, Lamborghini has decided to form its own one-make series using the successor to the Gallardo, the LP560.

Toyota Motor Corp stock decline over the past 12 months. Source www.BigCharts.com
According to Bloomberg news, Toyota will soon announce a possible dividend cut or profit loss. Following the announcement by Toyota Motor Corp. President Katsuaki Watanabe, stocks dropped (just 0.2 percent) but still remained strong.
Bloomberg sources the Nikkei English News, which doesn’t give a source, but states that Toyota may actually post an operating loss of $1.7 Billion. It would be the first loss in the company’s 71 year history.
Toyota’s US sales fell 34 percent last month.

The news also brought about some market turbulence in German where both Daimler and BMW posted three percent losses for the day.

Meanwhile, Lamborghini has announced that even the ultra-rich are not free from the economic woes. While they do expect to post another record sales year, production will be slowed as the company will add an additional eight days to its Christmas brake.

Exotic car manufacturers, it should be noted, are in a unique position during such dire financial times as they rely on a pre-ordering process with lengthy wait times for customers. This means that sales of 2009 vehicles more accurately represent the 2007 marketplace as orders would have to have been placed much earlier. The advantage for companies like Lamborghini or Ferrari is that this system gives them a significant amount of time to react to an economic downturn.

[Source Bloomberg & Bloomberg]

Official Toyota Sales figures after the jump:

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