Want a New Ferrari ?

Never an impulse purchase, a new Ferrari nowadays is something you will wait upwards of 24 months to get. The cars, built in quantities of 6,000 or fewer per year, have always taken about a year from order to delivery, but demand from developing parts of the world — particularly the Middle East and Asia — has made the wait longer.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Chinese buyers are snapping up at least 150 Ferraris a year, and that 60 of the Italian thoroughbreds went to Russia this year. Both were markets where Ferraris were virtually unknown in the past. The paper also notes that the high demand and very low supply means a gray market in resold cars is a constant struggle for Ferrari to deal with.

About 28 percent of the Ferraris built went to North America in 2006, according to Ferrari, with European countries accounting for about 40 percent, but the "other" column is growing, at 21 percent last year.