Top 10 Luxury Cars in the 3rd Quarter of 2007

No Lexus that seems a little hard to believe, when we are out on the town or having a together and cars come up almost everbody mentions a Benz, Bimmer, or Lexus and what they think of them?

Good for Acura. If one were to read autospies.com and no other auto news site, one would think Acura was at the bottom of the barrel. They are in fact a good lux marque. The MDX (benchmark sport lux suv) and the Acura TL (I love the lines) are pretty good cars. They well too. The current design of the TL is about to be retired. Lets hope the next one looks just as good.

LOL, I thought this was third quarter sales. I'm a little surprised that the 7 Series and XKR are on there, and that something like the LS460 isn't.

Forbes readers can research vehicles all they want. The bottom line is what sells. Another stunning omarrana/egm post. We get it, you love bmw. BMW is going to find the cure for cancer, world hunger and global warming, while still having soul and magic feel.

"bottom line is what sells."

ok...

3-series far outsells IS
5-series far outsells GS
SL and 6-series each far outsell SC
GL outsells LX
etc.

and this is just in the US. globally, every BMW model outsells its lexus counterpart.

Oh god, here I go, feeding the trolls......

ES/IS combined outsells 3 and C
RX outsells ML and X5
LS outsells S and 7.

Lexus brand outsells BMW and MBZ

And yes this is from the US, Forbes is an American magazine.

That was so much fun.

(Not that my original post said anything about Lexus. Where are the A8/A4? G35? CTS? Obviously I could go on, but its already taken up way too much time.)

Hey their all great cars but somebody has to lose the sales race.

Don't get your panties in a bunch Acura for years has made quality cars recently making consumer reports #2 spot.I know you like Lexus, I have no problem with that. Acura though might not top out as much as the Lexus vechicles, but Lexus has their hands full because they have no SUV right now that can top the MDX. The LX 570 or shoud I say Landcruiser don't count.

Awww...it looks like someone got their feelings hurt.

What purpose would they have to publish false info?

I'm going to guess that the people that visit the site have pretty high income...and, there was an article posted recently that showed what customer income levels were for the different manufacturers. M-B and BMW were the highest among German manufacturers (I'm excluding Porsche here because of low volume. Jaguar had high % in highest income bracket, but again, they don't sell that many vehicles).

No, I'm not surprised. Is it so shocking that people that have money and know better don't really care about Lexus? Let's say you had $150k to spend on a large luxury vehicle would you be considering a silly LS? I doubt it. You'd be looking at AMG or M car. I'm sure they aren't looking for a bland "point-a to point-b car" with no panache.

BTW, I'm sure Bill Gates has MANY cars, not just a Lexus (if he even has one) and even IF he does own one, I'm sure he doesn't drive it. His wife probably does or maybe a chauffeur.

Bill Gates has a heli-pad beside the building that houses his office on the Redmond Campus.
Its years since he drove his beater Impala.
Who cares what's in his fleet?

lexus. hmmm...they're basically really high quality transportation appliances. not much research to do. you just buy one because reliability is what you really care about.

houston:

bias? it's just raw data. these are the cars that forbes wealthy readers are most interested in learning more about.

5 out the 10 are BMW, and so many on this site don't like BMW I don't understand

Normal people like BMW. A lot of the posters here aren't normal.

Well, as a long-time BMW owner, there have been many that I've really enjoyed (E53/E46), and others that I dislike so much that I wouldn't drive them if they were given to me(E65/E60).

BMW is not the be all/end all of automotive engineering - by any measure, and it really gets tiring when some act like they are.

Ok, this grouping is certainly not a reflection of my own personal list of deserving vehicles, but...

Who really cares?

To Each Their Own!

These are the most *researched* vehicles. This is hardly a metric to determine the true worth of a brand.

Im not sure what kind of luxury forbes speaks of, but the bmw 3 series is not luxuries at all. i could see why the 7 and S are on the list, but real luxury is defined by rare materials, Leaving the real Luxury cars out of this list like Bentley or Rolls is why forbes is not the most trustworthy Auto informant i'd rely on. Clearly some other Real enthusiasts feel the same.

Hmm im amazed that not one Audi made it in there. Lexus, I suppose the LS460 should have made the list. Oh well. Nice job to Acura though, semi-entry level luxury would have never been done any better by any other company.

Forbes is mostly stock-broker types. Their motivations are image and costs (the word "cheap" is not polite to use).
That upstart Lexus doesn't cut it for the image portion.
And BMW's free maintenance appeals to their penny-pinching ways.
Plus, BMW makes an awesome product.........
Benz also has the right image.
Audi is bought be auto enthusiasts who like to be more discreet (they aren't badge snobs) ... hence they mix with the Forbes guys like water and oil.

Great to see the Jaguar XKR doing great, awesome machine...

ditto!!

Go Jaguar,one day you'll be back to a mighty roar.

S Class No 1, no suprise here, except where is the CL?

The CL is nowhere near as popular as the S... it's an even better car, but I'm not surprised.

weres audi?

I sometimes feet that Audi is crippled by its VW affiliation when it comes to luxury credibility.

I think after people researched these vehicles they went and bought a Lexus because they got so much more for their mones without having to bringing their broken down german cars to the shop all the time.

If you want to blend in with the scenery you buy a Lexus.

If you want to be scene you buy a German automobile.

Unless you live in the South West (particularly Las Angeles or Las Vegas/Summerlin NV - Where I live), were MB/BMW are as common as Accord/Camry.

Trust me, there's nothing the least bit 'exclusive' about owning a German (so called) luxury vehicle.

in MY neck of the woods, Benzes and BMWS don't stand out at all and even bentleys. (theres a dealer and the ONLY dealer in MD)its the same thing every day. the MB one nearby is the biggest and theres one in every corner.

virtually all of these cars get people excited. people (not just enthusiasts) are passionate about cars that are good looking and fun to drive. no surprise to me that the list is dominated by german marques.

Um gee I dont see Lexus on the list. Maybe b/c they aren't desireable cars. They are just for people who can't afford real luxury brands obviously like Mercedes or BMW. Only us stupid Americans put Lexus on the map. Hello people its just a rebadged Toyota w/an "L" on it. The pple at Forbes.com finally realized that.

Sick of this crap. God knows I'm not a Lexus lover but they deserve respect. I'd take an LS over a 7 Series.

This list really means nothing. Isn't "Lexus" the most frequently-searched luxury brand on this site? I remember one of the Agents making an article about that...

Right, it means nothing because there's no Lexus on it.

Although I'm inclined to agree, this list is garbage (who really searches cars on Forbes every day?), but not for the reasons you're implying...

What reasons am I implying? I suggest you not "read too much into" my response, as you always do... Read the words on the page, not the ones I didn't type S4.

It's like talking to a brick wall. Read between the lines.

Face the fact lexus didn't make the list, for whatever reason, except it and move on.
Wait for the next list.


Who cares anyway!

Nice one Jaguar, the future is very bright...

Who cares what people are researching? I research cars I dont buy everyday.

Who cares!

There is no strong correlation between the number of searches per car in Forbes magazine to the respective sales. Why? simply because it's not a prerequisite to have done research with Forbes in order to buy any particular car. All this article says is that a small and particular group of people that read Forbes chose these brands.

For a stronger correlation I would like to see how many (total) readers of Forbes actually bought these cars vs how many cars were actually sold to the open market. Otherwise, don't bother with trying to impress anyone.