#luxury

Mazda is like that artisan pizza place or a craft brewery your coolest friends all like. They make a familiar product, but there is definitely something different about it. While you can’t always place your finger on it, that unexplainable “x” factor affords them the hint of pretentiousness that comes along with doing things differently.

And like any hip outlet selling quirky artisanal goods, they are likely going to start charging you more for it.

The Mercedes-AMG E63 is a notoriously maniacal car, but Americans have been saddled with the 4Matic all-wheel-drive version while Europeans enjoyed the option of rear-wheel drive. That meant no ludicrous AMG-induced burnouts west of the Atlantic for E-Class customers.

Now everyone can have an all-wheel-drive AMG E63, and everyone — with the money — can also do glorious burnouts while proudly waving their various flags out the driver’s side window.

BMW is resurrecting a lengthy and luxurious V12-powered monster to take revenge on Mercedes-Benz for having the audacity to make an opulent flagship like the S-Class Coupe.

Germany’s Automobilwoche — Automobile Week if you don’t speak Deutsche — is verifying rumors that BMW will be returning with a new 8 Series.

A large-scale culling of Cadillac dealers won’t come to pass, but that doesn’t mean franchise owners are giddy about joining the automaker’s controversial Project Pinnacle.

An overwhelming majority of the brand’s 925 U.S. dealers have opted to sign on to the program, ignoring company president Johan de Nysschen’s last-minute buyout offer to 400 low-volume locations.

The long journey back from the economic damage wrought by the diesel emissions scandal is taking Volkswagen down new roads.

In a bid to boost the profitability of its remaining non-diesel lineup, the automaker will introduce a wholly new model aimed at the premium car crowd, Bloomberg reports.

The Jeep brand can seemingly do no wrong, at least on its balance sheet, but are consumers ready to shell out six figures for a top-flight SUV with a seven-slot grille?

That’s the price range Jeep plans to probe with its upcoming Grand Wagoneer, the uppermost of two luxury vehicles designed to slot above the Grand Cherokee, Auto Express reports.

Call it a longshot, but two wagon revelations in one week have us wondering if a long-ignored vehicle segment is about to see a resurgence in the SUV-loving U.S.

The latest news comes by way of Motor Trend, which confirms the upcoming Jaguar XF Sportbrake — British newspeak for “wagon” — is bound for these shores.

You’re a busy person, and standing at a gas station with a nozzle in your hand is for plebes.

Not to put too much of undergrad term paper slant on it, but that’s what Bentley silently suggests by rolling out a trial fuel delivery service for its owners. The ultra-luxury automaker has teamed up with U.S. tech startup Filld to offer the perk.

The dwindling supply of new vehicles offering a row-your-own driving experience spurs fewer tears than before, but the three-pedal setup isn’t dead yet.

In fact, offering a manual transmission is still worthy of boasting about through official channels. As it rolls out the 2017 A4, Audi wants you to know there’ll be an option to ditch the PRNDL pattern on all-wheel-drive models, allowing spirited motorists the increasingly rare opportunity to take full control of their gear changes.

Oh, and those other guys? Yeah, they don’t offer one. Audi made sure to remind us of that.

The flagship LS built the Lexus brand’s reputation by offering quality on par with the Germans and a V8 engine that was smaller and more advanced than those fielded by the Americans.

The model continued on a relatively fixed course for the next 26 years, slowly increasing the displacement of its V8 and giving a nod to environmental pressure with a hybrid variant. Even in the LS 600h, the battery is still strapped to a 5.0-liter V8.

However, a trademark application uncovered by AutoGuide suggests that the LS’s drivetrain tradition is due for a shakeup.

Lexus has leaked a photograph of its UX Concept vehicle ahead of a planned September 29 unveiling at the Paris Motor Show.

The concept displays a new design direction for the luxury automaker — and an edgy one at that — but is there a chance that the concept heralds a wholly new model?

Mercedes-Benz began selling the ML in 1997. Seemingly more of a stretch, along came the BMW X5 two years later.

Then Porsche, not just a luxury carmaker but the preeminent German sports car builder, pulled the same stunt with the Cayenne in 2003. The move doesn’t seem so crazy now that Porsche produces 60 percent of its U.S. sales by way of the Cayenne and its little brother, the Macan.

Indeed, there were no surprises when earlier this year, in one fell swoop, the F-Pace became Jaguar’s best-selling model in its first month on the market, outselling the newly re-launched XF and the brand new XE right from the start.

But can the same strategy be replicated further upmarket? Much further upmarket, at a $232,000 price point? At a brand which suffered a 46-percent year-over-year sales decline in 2016’s first seven months?

Most definitely. The Bentayga is to Bentley what the Cayenne became to Porsche, what the F-Pace has already become at Jaguar. Only more so.

As it tries to carve out a foothold in the premium field, Genesis has priced its full-size G90 luxury sedan in an intermediate zone between its established German competition and new American range-toppers.

The G90 comes laden with standard features, so the price range of the four available configurations isn’t wide. With a starting price of $69,050 (including freight) for a rear-wheel-drive twin-turbo V6 model, the son-of-Hyundai hopes its flag bearer has enough value to get noticed.

The Aston Martin Cygnet was just the beginning.

For those who thought the luxury automaker’s now-defunct rebadged Toyota city car was a weird idea (and that includes just about everyone), just wait. Aston Martin is now eager to sell you anything — your clothes, your baby stroller, and even your house.

The sixth-generation BMW 7 Series didn’t go over exactly as the automaker might have hoped, so it’s planning to ditch two doors and hope for the best.

Sources close to the company’s plans tell Bloomberg that a coupe version of the flagship sedan is in development as BMW tries to catch up to the more successful Mercedes-Benz S-Class.