I've heard it repeated and spread around this forum as an unsubstantiated fact for at least a year now.

And to top it off some here even claim the government's definition of a luxury vehicle is a 42k or greater price tag... as a way of substantiating the 42k mark as 'not just' an artificial barrier created to manipulate Caddy's sales into seeming more impressive.

Here's some fun facts:
Best selling Luxury brand vehicle for 2005?
Lexus RX330, selling 97001 units.
That's higher than the much-touted BMW 3-series, which is #2 best selling, and the Acura TL coming in 3rd

Best selling luxury brand for 2005?
Lexus, with 302,895 total sales in the US, Caddy comes in with 235,002

#1 Sales growth in the last 5 years?
Lexus, @ 49%

Does the government define a certain price point and above as a 'true' luxury vehicle?
In the traditional sense, such as the EPA? No. No such definition. Though once upon a time (it stopped in '02) they taxed people for every vehicle dollar purchase exceeding 40k as a "luxury tax", but that's no more of a classification as is taxing Joe more because he makes 40 grand and Bob makes 20 grand. It's just a graduated tax scale.

And the real kicker... the average transaction price for one brand compared to the other?

(sorry, that was for 2003- best I could find, couldn't find any stats for 2005)

I've been trying to avoid appearing to 'beat the lexus drum' on this forum as it seems to agitate some here, but what I'm discussing here is fact, in the attemtp to keep this, as far as I can tell right now, unsubstantiated myth from circulating.

 

Short version: "Gee. Imports have gotten a lot of market share, and sell a lot of luxury vehicles!"

Sorry, don't find it profound.

Why isn't this a Lounge topic?

 

How predictable... whining that this should be in the lounge because you don't like the subject nature. It's about current sales figures - that's just as much if not more 'news' than a lot of what gets posted here - including other sales figures and stats.

Regardless of that... the 'profound'ness of the topic is in dispellling an apparent fallacy that has been circulating this forum in guise of 'fact' for a long time now.

 

Why didnt you put this in the other thread discussing this exact topic?

 

If this is off topic then I wonder where you were in the tens of threads that come up when I search for the word "sales" in the title of a thread posted to this forum. The only difference is I'm questioning a fact instead of just posting them for the sake of posting them.

It wasn't discussing this exact topic, it was heading off on a tangent and only a select couple of people were bothering to respond. I want this subject to get as much exposure as possible so that somebody can't just say "well nobody saw you ask for the facts, but they're out there".

I'm perfectly prepared for and perfectly willing for somebody to prove me wrong - I'm not saying I am right... I'm just saying I made an ernest attempt to figure out the source of this 'fact' since I've heard it so often, and I just can't.

 

This article claims $36,000 as the cut-off point, although no official government definition is used. It is the MSP (mean selling price) of all vehicles sold. It also discusses in great detail the differences between "luxury" and "prestige" and all the other sub-categories of "luxury".

http://www.answers.com/luxury%20cars

The article also points out that market share of mid-lux ($36,000 - $60,000) is 30% American nameplates compared to 23% Japanese, and the high-end lux ($60,000 - $100,000) is 30% American and only 8% Japanese (This is probably powered by the STS and DTS, as well as Escalade).

So, if we went by these definitions, You can make a compelling case for Cadillac.

 

Here's the link.
http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/s...uxury+cadillac

 

That article coincides with the market share figures from the definition I posted above.


Rebuttal time.

 

To summarize what I read in that article... as in the actual logical facts and numbers given by that article? I heard solid numbers such as "a lot" and "a few". But that doesn't really seem to match up with my stats side.

In fact that article still didn't come out and say that Caddy sells more vehicles with transaction prices (or even MSRPs if you feel the need to use that to your advantage since, as mentioned, Lexus rarely discounts much below MSRP and never has rebates). It only talked about the cars sold with base MSRPs below 42 grand.

OK as if there was even any reason to discuss starting MSRPs vs actual MSRPs or transaction prices...
Lexus:
IS (30k) ES (33k) and RX (37k)

For Caddy:
CTS (29k), Deville (41k), DTS (41k), SRX (36k), STS (41k)

So that means every vehicle in Caddy's lineup except for the exotic XLR and the Escalade models start at under 42. Lexus has 3 out of 8 of its vehicles starting under 42k. Seems like even if it weren't a stupid 'point' to make that Caddy comes out in the losing end of the deal.

And lastly, again, where did the magic 42k figure come from because so far I've only heard it when somebody is trying to say Caddy sells more "true" luxury cars, but even then we just showed that Caddy has more vehicles and a greater relative percentage of its vehicles with MSRPs starting under 42k, and that the average actual transaction price (per my graph) is higher for Lexus vehicles too.

 

Threxx, you have no response for the market share numbers I posted? Lexus is a virtual non-factor in the $60,000+ range. They have most of their sales in the near-lux to mid-lux range. This should not be surprising at all.

The numbers can be configured to however you want to define "luxury." Now, are we talking about base MSRPs or actual stickers for each vehicle? Sure, STS starts at $41k but there probably aren't too many base STS models running around.

I don't see how (or why?) you'd argue the success of Cadillac in the mid and high-end luxury market. Lexus sells more cars, sure, but I remain unconvinced they sell more cars above the controversial $42,000 mark than Cadillac. You haven't exactly presented cut-and-dry info either. Your graph is 3 years for crying out loud....before the new RWD STS, before the new DTS, before the SRX and obviously before the new Escalade and (low volume) XLR. 2003 was old product!

 

So are you trying to redefine "true luxury" as 60k+ now? If not, why even mention it? Lexus and Caddy both pale in the light of Mercedes and BMW when it comes to sales in the 75k+ range... so what's the point? Where do you draw the line at what is and what isn't 'true' luxury? Do you call the Z28 not a true sports car because it's a mid 20s car instead of a 40-60k dollar car like the Vette? Or do you call the Z06 'not a true exotic' because it doesn't have a 6-figure price tag?

All of this is silly. About the only somewhat worthwhile point of comparison when comparing the success of the two brands is the following:
Current sales volume
Average transaction price per unit
(And maybe) market share gains / sales volume increases over the last X years.

But really that last one is just supplementary to the first two.

We've already got sales volume numbers for '05 where Lexus has roughly a 29% advantage. We've already discussed base MSRPs which was pretty much the entire focus of that 'article' you posted - so as to why you are interested in 'moving past' that subject now I can only imagine.
So the only thing left to see is factual data on the average vehicle selling price for the two brands in 2005. I have no doubt it has increased for Caddy but I could only assume it will have increased for lexus as well.

I mean keep in mind Lexus has seen plenty of new releases since then. The GX wasn't out yet, ES350 is all new, IS wasn't out in its current vastly better selling format, new GS, all new LS is about to come out, same with the LX, RX was completely redesigned. I mean you can always pick a point in time - and I did based on the only info I could find. So sue me if it was 2 years older but that's all I can find at the moment. Please find a newer one. Seriously... it'd be very beneficial to this topic of conversation if somebody could.

If somebody has a subscription to the website I got that image off of maybe they could find the '05 version?

 

Setting arbitrary price points and then comparing the number of MODELS available within that range is about as pointless as it gets. I thought we were talking about the number of actual sales made within a certain range - after all what matters in the end is the sales numbers, right?

The saying has always been that Caddy makes more vehicle sales in the 42k+ range than Lexus. Find stats that prove or disprove that or the closest we can do for now is discuss the average transaction price of the vehicles they did sell and it appears that as late as 2003 Lexus still had the obvious advantage. But considering Lexus already has a 29% overall sales volume advantage for '05 over Caddy, the average transaction numbers for '05 need to be considerably higher to likely reflect the actual volume of 42k+ cars is higher for caddy.

 

I'm simply using Wikipedia's definition of the different levels of luxury. Nothing like shooting the messenger.

Current sales volume is fine. But you're basing your argument against the title of this thread with a chart from 2003.

Market share gain doesn't tell me squat when you can't tell me at what price point the gains were made.

Maybe the article should've said "best selling over $41,000 MSRP" instead of $42,000....how fine do you want to split these hairs?

If you want to use $41,000 MSRP instead of $42,000, that brings in almost all of Cadillac's lineup....would you agree or disagree Cadillac sells more models over $41,000 based on the evidence?

Uhh, this is your argument bud, not mine. YOU find the evidence to back it up. Then we'll discuss. I may be right, I may be wrong, but it would seem to me that Cadillac has a good case.

 

You've helped make exactly the point I was going for... it's that obvious they wanted to make it that the price point was not set by some government organization but rather Cadillac fans who wanted to claim that Lexus is not a true luxury brand because 3 of its models are under 41k base MSRP and Caddy only has 2 under 41k. How far do they want to stretch to make themselves feel better?

You need the actual transaction price sold, or at least the actual MSRP - comparing # of vehicles sold that 'would have' a given MSRP is crazy. The Lexus RX330/350 is the best selling luxury branded car on the market today. It starts at $37,400 but I can promise you the average selling price of them is over 41k. So does that change anything? Or are we still pointlessly comparing the base MSRP of each model and choosing to completely ignore other factors such as options, rebates, and actual typical dealer sales prices?



Wait... I need to find 100% of the evidence, all of it based in 2005 in order for me to dispute a 'fact' that has been cited around here for the last year without a single shred of actual evidence other than some loose arguement based on the base MSRP of the models within each lineup? Good grief. That's like george bush claiming there always have been and still are WMDs in Iraq and the public coming up with a crapload of evidence stating to the contrary yet a bit of their evidence is slightly dated and instead of disputing the information Bush just turns around and says "well you need to come up with more recent evidence on that one portion before I bother to validate my original claims".

No... I wasn't the one who claimed Caddy sold more vehicles for 42k+ than any other manufacturer in the US, so it really shouldn't be me who's being critisized for being unable to find one piece of evidence that was 100% up to date.

Good grief. Want me to find the holy grail too? My evidence is overwhelming compared to what I've seen posted to the contrary so far - a redefinition of what a 'true' luxury car is by wikipedia? OK that's backpedaling if I ever saw it - not to mention you still haven't given any actual sales figures... you're just trying to cause me to re-present a case based on a different definition instead. lol
And then a thread about # of models available above a very obviously biasedly set base MSRP point? What does that prove?

 

I'm still not clear what your basis for all of this is? Two threads, seven pages, and what is your point, exactly? The only discernable assertion of your's I have found in all this is that the next wave of Cadillacs need to be class leading, unlike the current one. Then, you yourself admit that the Escalade, the only Cadillac that is "next wave," is in fact the best in its segment.

So what are you complaining about, exactly? The rest of you're posting is a matter of statistics being statistics. Someone presented numbers that say Cadillac does this, you have others saying Lexus does that. Who cares, exactly? What bearing does it have on the successfulness of Caddy's new lineup? Are they not selling well? Have there been problems with the cars' quality of which only you are aware? I don't see any cohesive arguments here, only provacations.