#luxury

Few topics attain as much attention as something only a few can afford: Luxury cars, with special emphasis on who sells the most.

While some snootily state that a lot of these cars can’t possibly be listed as luxury comment, Connolly leathernecks battle in the burlwoods. The war for luxury-leadership is fought on a global scale, where Dr. Z. exhorts his troops to fight back the onslaught of the Bavarian Barbarians. Month after month, skirmishes for market share erupt on U.S. shores as well.

With the luxury market defying sluggish economic conditions, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche doesn’t want the upstarts at BMW and Audi to slip past it… which they are. Six months through 2011, the Mercedes brand found itself in third place among the German global luxury brands, at 610,531 units. A surging BMW captured 689,861 sales in the half, while Audi took second with 652,970. This, for Zetsche, is an unthinkable state of affairs. In a letter to his employees, excerpted by Automotive News Europe [sub], Zetsche makes it clear that leadership in the luxury space is a Daimler birthright.

Some of our competitors are now growing faster and more profitably than we are. Granted, those are just snapshots in time and should not be overestimated. After all, many of our best new products are yet to come… In the long run we can’t be content to be in a “solid second” or even “third” place: We are Daimler – we should be far ahead of the pack! And if that requires something that we don’t currently have, then we’ll identify and develop it.

Enjoy your summer and refill your tanks. Because in the second half of this year we’re going to continue to play some hard offense!

But does a sense of entitlement actually motivate workers?

Ian Callum, designer of the Aston-Martin DB7 (along with the new Jaguars and numerous other gorgeous things) is a really, genuinely nice guy. But even nice guys have their limits, and having seen his groundbreaking Aston design evolve with the morphological dynamism of a sturgeon over the last 17 years, Callum appears to have reached his. Bloomberg reports:

It’s still that same old basic design,” Ian McCallum, who designed the DB9 and is now design director at Tata Motors Ltd. (TTMT)’s Jaguar Land Rover unit, said in a July 27 interview. “Some will argue that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But you do get to a time when you have to move on.”

Sadly, there are a few factual distractions to deal with here before we dig further into Aston’s predicament. First of all, though a Scot, the man’s name is Callum, not McCallum. Also, it’s not clear how much of the DB9 was styled by Callum, and how much was finished by his successor, Heinrik Fisker. Clear? OK, back to Aston…

Polk’s Tom Libby takes a penetrating look into the obvious and reveals that American luxury car buyers rarely actually buy their cars, reporting:

Industry-wide, leases comprise about a fifth of all new vehicle registrations, but within the luxury market, lease penetration is more than twice as high at 45%. Three premium makes: BMW, Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz, actually have national lease rates at or above 50%…

These extraordinarily high lease results lead to several conclusions. First, the price of the vehicle is not the be-all and end-all. Rather, the monthly lease payment is a crucial factor. The monthly payment is not completely linked to the price, as the OEM and dealer have several tools by which to manipulate the monthly payment; these include, among other things, artificially raising the forecasted residual amount and increasing/decreasing the up-front lease payment. Second, if your premium make is not in the leasing business, you need to get there right away. Lastly, your lease rates, residuals and drive-away costs need to be competitive.

While there’s a lesson about America’s ceaseless desire to live beyond its means in there somewhere, the real lesson here is this: with sales coming out tomorrow, be sure to remember that not all of them are actual sales. Also, this is the reason you never see those “Don’t Laugh, It’s Paid Off” stickers anymore…

While Fiat-Chrysler revives its Lancia brand by rebadging new Chrysler models with few other modifications, it’s attacking Maserati’s aging product lineup with a similar but more subtle strategy. Automotive News [sub] reports that the current Quattroporte has a problem

The car is too big to be a compelling driver’s car, but too small – particularly in terms of rear legroom – to serve as a good chauffeur’s car.

Luckily, according to the report, there’s an easy solution:

The problem will be resolved by offering two cars – a “baby” Quattroporte, code-named M157 and a larger Quattroporte, code-named M156.

The new flagship model will continue to use a Ferrari-sourced V8, and presumably an evolution of the current model’s underpinnings, extended by 70 mm to 5170 mm, or 203 inches… about the length of the forthcoming Cadillac XTS. The smaller version, on the other hand, is going to be a case study in the ever-evolving art of balancing shared components and premium differentiation.

As we’ve already seen, BMW is building a record number of variants of its next-generation 3 Series, including “GT” hatchback and X4 “Sport Activity Coupe.” But as this photo shows, there is at least one other Dreier bodystyle that we hadn’t heard about yet: the long wheelbase sedan (top). Given the brand’s post-Bangle swing towards extreme styling consistency, the decision between a LWB 3 series and a 5 series seems to have serious head-scratching potential… but it’s not something we’ll have to worry about. The LWB sports sedan will only be sold in China, according to Auto Motor und Sport, where upmarket buyers favor chauffeurs… even in the Ultimate Driving Machine.

With Opel planning to pull itself into the black within the year, the brand’s thoughts are turning from survival to “luxuries” like a flagship model planned for around 20k units starting in the 2016-2017 timeframe. Codenamed “TOL” for “Top Of Line,” the sedan will be designed to highlight one of GM’s many alt-drivetrain technologies, but according to Automotive News [sub], nobody yet seems sure which. Opel labor rep and recent champion of the brand’s forthcoming products Klaus Franz explains:

Already with the our Ampera electric vehicle, we have shown what we are able to do and enjoy an advantage of two to three years compared to the competition

But with the TOL is planned for 2016, Opel may have to dig deep to jump out ahead of the market, which is why a fuel cell-powered electric drivetrain is being considered (also, after decades of FCV research, GM has to build a production model someday). And if the eventual product has a truly ahead-of-its-time drivetrain, and looks as good as last year’s Flextreme Concept (above), this flagship could be an exclamation point on Opel’s turnaround. Unfortunately, neither of these things are a given…

As the Porsche brand has expanded in recent years to include sedans and SUVs, and as overpriced special editions and cynically neutered products propped up an increasingly bloated pricing structure, Porsche fans have had plenty of opportunities to wonder “what are those guys smoking?” And now, thanks to Autoblog, we have part of the answer: we may not know exactly what Porsche is smoking, but we know what they’re smoking it out of. According to Porsche Design’s presser

The extraordinary Porsche Design Shisha combines high-quality materials such as aluminium, stainless steel and glass with the timeless and unique design approach of the luxury brand. Puristic and stylish at the same time. The Porsche Design Shisha is made in Germany and stands at a height of 55 centimetres. It only shows a discreet branding on the aluminium top of the Shisha and comes with a long flexible tube made out of TecFlex material, which is also used for the classic Porsche Design TecFlex writing tools.

So… when is Chrysler going to get in on this cross-branding opportunity?

Having penned my own paean to the late, not-so-widely-lamented Renault Vel Satis after seeing its anodyne Korean replacement, I was somewhat heartened to find that I’m not the only auto writer with something of a weird crush on the strangest luxury car of our day. In the August issue of Evo Magazine, Richard Porter of Sniff Petrol dedicated an entire column [excerpted at vel-satis.org] to his inexplicable love for a car that he admits was

a hopeless old crock [from a time] when Renault’s quality control department couldn’t organise a tasting in a winery.

But, argues Porter, the Vel Satis has a unique appeal in the sense that it was

so self-consciously distanced from its dour German rivals that it was practically falling into La Rochelle Harbour

Whether Porter is genuine in is love for the Vel Satis or simply trolling famously elitist, performance-oriented readership is a question I’ll leave to the Best and Brightest. What is clear is that Porter’s weird love will not be recreated, as Auto Motor und Sport reports that Renault has learned its lesson and will be making “conservative” luxury cars in the future.

I don’t know about you, but I’m finding the “analog clock=luxury” thing a bit played out. One upon a time, the old-school interior clock was everywhere… and folks called it a modern convenience. Then it became a genteel, slightly throwback Maserati hallmark. Then it became a symbol of Infiniti’s admiration for Maseratis, and its desire to stand apart in the luxury market. Then Chryslers started adding clocks as it moved, unconvincingly, to position itself upmarket. Now? Now the interior chronograph just seem to be a symbol of trying to hard to appear luxurious without really offering anything unique, distinctive, or innovative. Which is why I’m a bit concerned that an early shot of the new Lexus GS, a car that has years of underachievement in a crucial segment to make up for, seems to show that Lexus has succumbed to the siren call of the dashboard clock.

To the best of my knowledge, Lexus has never indulged in an analog dash clock before (at least in the US market), as its interiors have always been modern and purposeful, emphasizing function over frippery. This isn’t a question of “ruining” the car itself… few customers are likely to put as much emphasis on an analog clock as I do. But in this small step I do see signs of a brand drifting away from its pioneering roots and towards the directionless malaise that inevitably leads to fad-chasing, and style over substance. Even if Lexus does need to reinvigorate its aesthetic DNA, ripping of the cheesiest “Luxury: I Has It” signifier in the interior design playbook ain’t a promising start. Don’t clock up a good thing, Lexus!