Which of the following do you consider as luxury brands?

[bob12345]

Which of these non-Lexus, Mercedes, BMW, and Audi brands do you consider as luxury brands (equivalent to those 4 brands) or merely as sub luxury brands?
I found many people consider these brands have ambiguous standings as luxury brands.

all in random orders

1. Acura by Honda
2. Buick by GM
3. Cadillac by GM
4. Infiniti by Nissan
5. Lincoln by Ford
6. Genesis by Hyundai
7. Volvo by ... um by Geely Holding of China

[RicerX]

Buick ... ugh. I don't consider them a luxury offering, even though I think they want you to think that. Their marketing campaign is confusing to me. Lincoln is in the same boat, though they're trying to establish a luxury flagship with the new Continental, so I guess my feelings on them are on hold.

Who's Acura?

[Bubba1]

It really depends on your definition of "luxury". It's the same problem as the definition of "sports car". In recent years, the definition of luxury or sports car has been so greatly muddied up to the point that virtually anything can be labelled (or considered) luxury or sports car. For example, If you consider Lexus a "luxury" brand of Toyota, then you could make the argument that Acura, Infiniti, Genesis, Lincoln and Cadillac are luxury brands as they are considered the "luxury" divisions by their parent companies. But if you define luxury as, say, $125,000+ msrp, then none on the list are considered luxury.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Oh man. Oh man. Inviting me to participate in this poll is like inviting a lion to a quadriplegic impala convention.

You listed seven brands. ALL of them think they are luxury brands.

Two of them are complete f*** jokes.

One of them is weird and safe and Swedish and not in any way a luxury brand, no matter how much of a premium they slap on their cars for being an import brand.

One of them is a passable General Motors division that sells a range of non-luxury cars with leather inside and really strange european styling.

Then there are Cadillac, Infiniti, and Genesis.
What do these three brands have in common that the others don't?
They sell their own products developed from the beginning specifically to be upmarket luxury cars. Yes, I'll concede that Infiniti has taken several steps backward of late and once again sells a slew of rebadged CVT-ridden Nissans. But they also sell a bunch of real luxury cars and crossovers (and a truck).

Acura and Lincoln are the two saddest excuses for automakers on the planet. Yes, sadder even than Mitsubishi, who at least makes their own freaking cars and doesn't suffer from such spectacular delusions that they try to ask $60,000 for one of their blandmobiles.

There is not one reason to buy any Acura or Lincoln. Not one single reason. Anyone who does lacks reasoning skills and should not be allowed to make important life decisions without a caretaker present. Most of the Hondas and Fords those cars are based on are already sub par, but adding bad styling, unnecessary tech, and tens of thousands of dollars to the pricetag absolutely does not help the matter.
Most importantly, no car sold by either Acura or Lincoln possesses any of the core tenets of being a luxury car. They are all wrong-wheel drive. They are all small with small powerplants. They do not seat adults comfortably. They do not have commanding presence in terms of styling or style. Not a single one of them was designed with luxury in mind (most being the contrary and beginning life as low-cost volume sellers). Most importantly: they're no more luxurious than any other car that can be had with leather and tech options.

[Bubba1]

There is not one reason to buy any Acura or Lincoln. Not one single reason. Anyone who does lacks reasoning skills and should not be allowed to make important life decisions without a caretaker present. .

So says the guy who proudly owns a Lincoln. I agree with you that the Lincoln brand has wallowed for many years from lack of investment/direction by Ford devolving into all rebadged low echelon Ford vehicles with ugly Pontiac looking split grills slapped on, crappy infotainment systems, and higher MSRP's. If you're determined to blame someone, blame the auto mfger marketing departments for pitching vehicles as something they're not. Heck, only in 'Murica can a fwd, cvt only, angry beaver looking grilled, full sized family sedan get marketed as a 4 door sports car. The American consumer in general must also accept blame for being so dang gullible about the nonsense being pitched by auto marketing departments. That's hardly a stretch as many Americans are equally gullible about the nonsense pitched by politicians.

As far as Acura, as a long time owner (my wife's car) , aside from being reliable, nimble handling, reasonably priced, inexpensive to maintain/insure, gets 30+ mpg, sits 4 comfortably (its true), with a decent sized trunk, has all the luxury items she wants and better than average depreciation, I can't think of single reason to buy one. Call me impulsive and irrational I guess. And since my parents died long ago, perhaps I should buy a ouiga board for them to help me with my life decisions. Teasing aside, I do agree with you that Acura is not a traditional luxury brand like Rolls Royce or Maybach, but like the other brands on this list, perhaps they fit better into a much broader inbetween category? Not luxury, but maybe one that's a bit fancier than a lowest echelon brand. How about calling 'em "premium" instead of luxury? Fwiw I do not consider my wife's Acura a luxury car, but more of a Civic with some better features/styling.

[MinisterofDOOM]

So says the guy who proudly owns a Lincoln.

Hey, now, be careful what kind of insults you're throwing around!
I have never professed to being a proud Lincoln owner. I proudly own a Jaguar that was raised to think it's a Lincoln, but I've had no love for anything from the brand since they ruined the Navigator, killed off the Mark LT and Town Car, and replaced the LS with a front-drive 4-banger with fender badges. To me, Lincoln began a long, arduous battle with a terminal illness in 2007 and finally found peace in 2011.

Being the owner of an example of what the brand is capable of, I'm more disappointed than anyone at what they've become.

Of course, even if Ford DID bring back the LS and made a phenomenal sport sedan on IRS Mustang bones with a great DOHC V8, they still wouldn't know how to market it well enough to sell since it's not a pony car or a pickup. So it would just bomb and they'd pass it off as a sign that there's no market for that kind of car, all while Jaguar sees surging sales and profits on the back of the XE. Which is all basically what happened with the LS. Ford's so bad at marketing that the LS failed while the CTS saved Cadillac, and Ford tried to brush it off as market conditions. And it wasn't reliability, either; the early CTS had a terrible reputation and rode on the coat tails of the Catera to boot. It was Ford's recurring ability to design a great product and then sit back and watch as it flounders.

Which is why Lincoln will never be a luxury brand no matter how much it charges for Tauruses.

[wa-chiss]

I'm all with Doom. Can you put a "Neither" option please. And then again, some Lexus models are upscaled toyotas. RX350:highlander, ES350:Avalon, LX570:Land Cruiser. Neither one of those warrant the added price tag.

The Genesis is a sad excuse I think
Worked around Buick and cadillac for a while, JUNK, polished turd. (LSX engines though, Perfection)
WTF is a volvo. I bet their only sales increase was due solely to the Twilight saga (not 100% sure, but a fact check would be interesting)
Absolute worst (like Doom stated) are Lincoln and Acura.
The only option left you gave is Infiniti. Quite lacking in a few aspects, but not far off IMHO

[frapjap]

I dunno man, Lincoln looks sweet these days with the new Continental. Not to mention the high end engine option that unfortunately costs WAY too much and quickly has you looking at the competition.

https://www.lincoln.com/cars/continental/

[MinisterofDOOM]

You know I've NEVER seen a new Continental on the road? That's how many people are rushing out to snap one up.

I'VE SEEN MORE PORSCHE 959s ON THE ROAD THAN CONTINENTALS.

[frapjap]

Valid point. I wonder if its because they dont market the car?

[Bubba1]

Oh, Ford markets Lincoln plenty, remember the Matthew McConaughy commercials? They're still paying him. They also do a lotta print ads in magazines. Remember Lincolns demographics are old fart non-enthuiasts. . But I have noticed they stopped sending me $50 test drive offers this past year. Fiat-Chrysler stopped too. The cars were rather unimpressive, but teasing the sales people was fun.

[Jesda]

Volvo today makes luxury cars with the finest interiors in the business but it isn't yet a luxury brand.
Acura is a mid tier brand with one exception -- NSX -- exceptions don't make the rule.

Of course you could clarify further -- Bentley and Rolls Royce are luxury brands. The rest are premium brands. Mercedes-Benz and Porsche are somewhere in between.

In addition to a perception that exceeds reality and demand that slightly exceeds supply, a luxury brand has to have high transaction prices:

[Jesda]

BMW is struggling globally, stalled in China where Cadillac, Audi, and MB are gaining ground. They rely heavily on lower-tier vehicles while MB and Cadillac move a respectable volume of S-classes and Escalades.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Finally spotted a Continental in the wild. First and only one so far.

You know with the TT V6 they cost SEVENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS?

$70 grand for a dressed-up Fusion with extra power.

I used to make fun of Acura for charging $50k for the RL, but this is a whole different level of ridiculous.

SEVENTY GRAND. GOOD LORD.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Just to shed some perspective on that, here's the results sheet from C/D's M3/Giulia Q/ATS-V/C63 comparo where REAL cars that do real car things can be bought for $60-90k:



Then here's the MT review of the Conti that talks about pricing ranging from $45,000 to SEVENTY EIGHT THOUSAND F#$^ING DOLLARS:



Let that soak in for a minute.

This is delusion at its VERY finest.

[szh]

There is not one reason to buy any Acura or Lincoln. Not one single reason. Anyone who does lacks reasoning skills and should not be allowed to make important life decisions without a caretaker present. .

As far as Acura, as a long time owner (my wife's car) , aside from being reliable, nimble handling, reasonably priced, inexpensive to maintain/insure, gets 30+ mpg, sits 4 comfortably (its true), with a decent sized trunk, has all the luxury items she wants and better than average depreciation, I can't think of single reason to buy one. Call me impulsive and irrational I guess.

Agreed!

My wife's 1997 Acura CL was the most and trouble-free reliable car I have ever owned (in more than four decades of owning many cars)! Since Jan 2012, she has driven a 2011 Acura TSX and it is proving to be the same.

She loves the small external size, decent acceleration (just over 200 HP from a 4 cylinder), the good handling, the good braking, decent mileage and reasonable seating for 4 people. The improvement of four doors over the two in the CL were also a factor in her getting it.

Once I changed the original OEM tires (235/50-17 Michelin MXM) out for a set of 245/45-17 Michelin Pilot Super Sports, the handling has become excellent. The dartiness has gone away completely without hurting the quick responsiveness of the car.

Literally just today, she was able to avoid hitting a deer that jumped out in front of her car! By swerving and braking, without losing control on a downslope set of curvy road near our house. She called me in a panic later, but the car dealt with it admirably.

Z

[MinisterofDOOM]

MXMs are among the worst tires I've ever driven on. They would ruin the best car and manage to make the worst car even more terrible. It astounds me that so many manufacturers fit them as OE.

[Jesda]

The new Continental has a seriously good interior, far better than the Cadillac CT6, but the hardware underneath is nothing special. I hope Lincoln's ridiculous prices result in ridiculous depreciation. It's a car I'd happily own used as a comfy commuter.
According to rumor, the next Continental will be a proper luxury car with a bespoke platform.

I am seriously tempted to pull the trigger on a current-gen CTS. It's a sophisticated, damn near flawless car built to a spectacularly high standard, but I'd miss the Northstar V8 roar of my Seville. I'm an ape who removed the mufflers from grandma's grocery getter so these silly things matter a lot to me.

Its closest competitor is the Q50 but the Infiniti brand means absolutely nothing to me.

[float_6969]

IMO, I wouldn't consider any of these luxury brands. Maybe Cadillac and Volvo. Everything else I would call mid-tier brands.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I hope Lincoln's ridiculous prices result in ridiculous depreciation. It's a car I'd happily own used as a comfy commuter.

That's pretty much what happened with the LS, just at half the price. Wait a couple years and a $40k sedan could be had for less than half that. Difference is: the LS does something unique, where the Continental is just another lazy waste of space offering absolutely nothing unique.

According to rumor, the next Continental will be a proper luxury car with a bespoke platform.

But this is EXACTLY why Lincoln is not a luxury brand.
They're SO FAR behind the curve here it's ridiculous. They killed off the Town Car without a valid replacement, then settled for multiple generations of a rebadge of a generic Ford based on an obsolete platform that's not even correctly suited for what it's being used for anyway, with halfway powertrain options and absolutely NOTHING to offer that the competition doesn't do better.
Then, when they had an opportunity to take a step forward and do things better, they settled for just a little bit better instead.
"Next time" has happened a lot of times for Lincoln and I'm still waiting for them to not screw it up.

Nobody goes to a Lincoln dealer to shop for "the next Continental." Lincoln needed to get this right NOW. Actually, BEFORE now.
If Lincoln wants people to care, we should have had an MKS worth its own existence 5 years ago. And we should be looking at the bugs-worked-out, fully-realized second generation now.
But, instead, they're doing what Ford has ALWAYS done best: halfway. They're busy farting around with stuff that doesn't matter instead of doing the obvious thing the right way, and I believe the reason for that is that they have absolutely no idea what they're doing, what they want to be, or how to achieve that. They might know they want to fight the Germans, but they have NO CLUE what that actually means.

If the next Continental is great, I'll certainly be pleased.

But remember that you're talking about a brand that has very loudly forsaken RWD and V8s in the name of fuel economy while still building cars that weigh 1000lb more than physics or common engineering sense should allow.

It's not going to be a car I have any interest in.

Are the new generation of Ecoboost V6s fantastic? Sure.
Do I want to spend $70k+ on one? F%CK NO.
Is Ford's latest transverse AWD system pretty solid? Absolutely
Do I want to spend $70k+ on a car with that system? Absolutely not.

I am seriously tempted to pull the trigger on a current-gen CTS. It's a sophisticated, damn near flawless car built to a spectacularly high standard, but I'd miss the Northstar V8 roar of my Seville. I'm an ape who removed the mufflers from grandma's grocery getter so these silly things matter a lot to me.

I love Cadillac. I was born a Cadillac guy. And I LOVE the new CTS. But I'm starting to have similar sentiments for Cadillac as for Lincoln: I'm sick of waiting around while they futz with halfway holdovers, making promises of something actually worth my time down the road.
I want a 4.0 TT V8 making 500+hp as the top-end NON-V powerplant in the CT6, and until that happens they're just wasting my time. Jag does it. Audi does it. MB does it. Where's Cadillac? F@cking around with 2.0 turbo pseudoflagships and promising something better tomorrow.

Go screw yourself Johan. Put up or shut up. Let's f*** do this already.

And, yeah, I realize the CTS is not the CT6, and that it's a phenomenal car. It checks a lot of my "why can't anyone get this right," like not weighing fifty-two tons and still having a proper roofline and deck while still looking more svelte than most of the tiny-pen15-compensating "coupelike" wastes of space that have ample legroom but lack sufficient headroom to seat a toddler.

Its closest competitor is the Q50 but the Infiniti brand means absolutely nothing to me.

What's frustrating to me is there's a lot I like about the Q50, but it just...sort of stopped trying. I like it. I wouldn't be unhappy with one. But...where's the SOUL? It's luxurious and powerful and still even has a big V8 despite Johan Degof%ckyourself's insistence that the brand should abandon the engine format. But it stopped being the stately musclecar its M-badged predecessors were.
Same for the FX, which was once the only crossover I actually liked. It still has a lot of those original qualities, but it has somehow made them...uninteresting.
Meanwhile, I echo the same sentiment from above YET AGAIN:
WHERE IS THE F#CKING Q90?
Q45 died eleven years ago.
Instead of replacing it, Infiniti is busy rebadging CVT-equipped Nissans and calling them Qs.
Pathetic.

[szh]

MXMs are among the worst tires I've ever driven on. They would ruin the best car and manage to make the worst car even more terrible. It astounds me that so many manufacturers fit them as OE.

Definitely agreed! These MXM's were terrible tires ... the change to the Pilot Super Sports made a large difference (i.e., not tiny at all)! Even my wife, who is not auto-inclined, noted and remarked on the change.

Amazing that two tire models from the same manufacturer could be so radically different.

Z