Jens H.

Just a silly question that might spark some controversy .After getting myself out of bed early enough to spend some quality car wash wax etc. time this morning before the sun bakes me completely I began to wonder what people nowadays consider a luxury car.
My new GTI is fully equipped with A/C electric windows moon roof leather 8 speaker audio so on and so forth ,does that make it a luxury car? I don't think so but my neighbors seem to equate VW with a luxury image .
What do you people think? My idea of luxury car is old school ,Mercedes Benz BMW Rolls Royce Bentley Audi and ofcourse the usual assortment of over the top Italian machinery.I guess Lexus fits in there though given a choice I'd opt for a Benz first.Acura is up there too though they need to sort out what sort of image exactly they are after as it seems they waver between Japanese BMW and next best thing to Lexus.
So let's hear it what do you car people think defines a real luxury car from the cars that are luxuriously equipped.
Jens

Zapata

the line is being SKEWED alot lately especially with things like NAVI, heated seats, etc., being offered in teir1 manufacturers.

Slimey

I don't know the answer to your question -- and I've asked it of myself too.

I think it's become a tough question to answer. There used to be a day when non-luxury cars did not have 'luxury' items like leather interior, premium sound, power windows, air conditioning, et cetera. Now even traditional budget lines (eg: Toyota and Honda) even offer these as options, and people even expect things like power windows as standard.

It's still hard to find navigation systems in non 'luxury' vehicles.

I think the playing field has really been evened out. There are still definite luxury cars (eg: Bently) that are hand made, use high quality leather, real wood, and a lot of TLC in production, but these are out of reach for most consumers.

Maybe it's not about the car itself, but about customer service. I think that the way the customer is treated is a big deal, but of course there are examples where someone gets great service from Dodge and crappy service from Mercedes.

It's still easy to separate the low-end Nissan Sentra from the top-of-the-line Mercedes S series, but there's become a lot of overlap in the middle of the field.

And as an aside, my wife and I have been shopping for a 'cute-ute' sub-compact SUV and have driven the RAV4 and CR-V, and looked at Misubishi, Jeep, Ford, and others (more test drives to come). My Acura CL still blows them all away in degree of luxury. The quality of the CL seat alone is blatently obvious when going from car to car. Yes, I know they're in totally different classes, but driving the CL has spoiled my butt!

Nashua_Night_Hawk

Talking about:
1) Pure luxury cars:
Rolls Royce, Bently etc..
2) Major LuxBrands:
BMW, MB, Audi, Cadilac
3) Premimun Brands:
Luxus, Infinity, Acura...

Now take: Toyota, Nissan and Honda... therie major sedan, Camry,Maxima,Accord, can be fully loaded to approch in price and luxo factor their Premium Brands.. They only lack in the permium after service and longer warranty.

Slimey

I'm not sure why BMW, and even MB to some degree, gets the moniker of a luxury brand. They market a lot of low end stuff in Europe and other parts of the world. They still make cars without power windows and vinyl seats. I guess I have a world bias, but I've not thought of these as de facto luxury brands. When I think BMW or MB, I think performance oriented Geman car (and sometimes the words 'performance oriented' are left out); luxury is not the first term to pop into my head.

(in other words, sure they have some nice high end models, but they also have a very long product line)