Can't Keep The Pace: BMW, Mercedes, And Lexus Trounce Domestic Luxury Brands In 2012

Domestic automakers fell further behind their foreign counterparts in luxury car sales last year.

Ford Motor Co.'s Lincoln and General Motors Co.'s Buick and Cadillac brands both had down years in 2012 and lost ground to luxury car leaders BMW — the year's overall sales winner — and Mercedes-Benz and Lexus.

"Domestics have the best luxury vehicle selection available for consumers," said Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends at TrueCar.com, an online automotive research site.

"It's the best collection of cars they've ever had. But the problem is the perception gap. It's still the No. 1 issue for domestic luxury brands."

Perception, however, was reality, and it wasn't pretty.

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HughJass - 1/4/2013 10:31:48 AM

+1 Boost

Another reason for an even bigger bailout in 2013. Hope Jesus is getting the check book ready to bring out the Dem vote in 2016.

Since when is Buick considered luxury?

cidflekken - 1/4/2013 10:38:07 AM

+2 Boost

"Domestic luxury" is an oxymoron.

joecamel - 1/4/2013 12:36:18 PM

+3 Boost

Today's domestic luxury cars are indeed better than ever, the problem is they're only as good as the German and Japanese luxury cars from 15 years ago.

Fijian - 1/4/2013 4:16:19 PM

+1 Boost

You guys forget what Luxury is.Buick has more features than many of the Import luxury brands have.Even Bently does not have cooled seats.Battery run down protection is another that imports dont have that Buick has.How many imports have heads up display.Some have finally copied.Most of the Luxury and innovation came from GM, Ford and Chrysler.Heck everyone was still using cranks until GM came out with the electric starter.Most here are badge whores.

Steve - 1/4/2013 10:54:14 PM

+1 Boost

Fijan: Bentley does indeed have ventilated (cooled) seats.

Note that a car's "goodness" is not measured by the number of bullets on the feature sheet. You can have a crummy car with lots of features! (That's what Microsoft does..."Look at all the features we have!" they exclaim, while the consumer replies "but you didn't do any of them particularly well :-("

BMW didn’t get where it is because of the length of its feature list. It got there primarily due to their impeccable handling, and they became popular in spite of their quirks. Similarly, Mercedes didn’t get where it is because of the longest feature sheet. It had luxurious and stately styling, and at one time was known for its reliability. Lexus didn’t get where it is because of the length of its feature list either. They decided to distinguish themselves with a high level of apparent luxury combined with few defects and high reliability (many view this as “quality.”)

Meanwhile, US manufacturers are attempting to sell alleged premium cars the same way they sell ordinary cars: Lotsa features and look at the money you’ll save. It appears not to be working that well.