You would be surprised: the luxury models are often not making any money at all, sometimes the manufacturer loses money on every single car produced.
Some examples from different price levels: Bugatti Veyron, Ford Focus RS, VW Phaeton.
The reason why they produce these is because of 'brand image'. VW builds the Veyron so the company can claim that they make the fastest car in the world, but Bugatti could not sustain itself. Same for the Focus RS: it costs a lot of money to design and build a car with that level of performance, but they can't sell it close to the price level of an entry level Ferrari (even though the costs are quite close).
This is probably the most important reason why they limit the numbers -- they want the car to be on the front page of magazines, but they also want to make sure not to sell too many.
Some examples from different price levels: Bugatti Veyron, Ford Focus RS, VW Phaeton.
The reason why they produce these is because of 'brand image'. VW builds the Veyron so the company can claim that they make the fastest car in the world, but Bugatti could not sustain itself. Same for the Focus RS: it costs a lot of money to design and build a car with that level of performance, but they can't sell it close to the price level of an entry level Ferrari (even though the costs are quite close).
This is probably the most important reason why they limit the numbers -- they want the car to be on the front page of magazines, but they also want to make sure not to sell too many.