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Washington DC February 25, 2009; The AIADA newsletter reported that for the past several years January has been Christmas for many luxury car dealers. That's when investment bankers, flush, with their hefty bonuses, used to begin prowling through their local Mercedes and Maserati dealerships.
But...luxury brand vehicle sales were off 36 percent in 2008, compared with the year before. If there is any good news for executives in charge of sales for Mercedes-Benz (DAI), Cadillac, and Lexus, it's that luxury brands overall took a bigger share of the overall market in January, 6.7 percent, than a year earlier, when it was 6.2 percent.
Executives and dealers told BusinessWeek that there is a surge in customers either looking to buy the car they have been leasing as a certified used car, or trading down a bit to get a lower monthly payment.
So, as the traditional customers for some of the leading luxury vehicles —bankers, bond traders, hedge funders, and other former masters of the universe feel the pinch, some of the hottest road candy of the last five years is looking more like vehicular wall flowers at a dance with way too few suitors.
