<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" I think we have to separate true luxury from what we broadly refer to as &amp;quot;luxury brands,&amp;quot; including Acura, Infiniti, Cadillac, and Lexus. Even BMW and Mercedes no longer fit in the first category. When people are paying $800 a month for a Tahoe LTZ and $350 a month for a Mercedes or BMW 3-series, which one is luxury? My favorite definition of luxury is the presence, in the product or service, of way more than you&amp;#039;ll ever need. It&amp;#039;s excessive capability, be it in size, style, performance, or features. That&amp;#039;s why a $60,000, crew-cab, turbodiesel 4x4 pickup with a leather and wood interior qualifies as much as a Porsche. But true luxury brands have to be expensive and relatively exclusive. I&amp;#039;ve always marveled at the battle between Mercedes and BMW (with Lexus as an also-ran) to be the top U.S. luxury brand. To me, it&amp;#039;s antithetical to be simultaneously exclusive and the most popular. The things that separate near luxury from true luxury are purely psychological. There&amp;#039;s no technological or capability difference. It&amp;#039;s what&amp;#039;s in people&amp;#039;s minds. Take the new Cadillac CT6. It&amp;#039;s a terrific car\u2014very well engineered, lightweight, structurally sound. It&amp;#039;s wonderful to drive. But I don&amp;#039;t think people will flock to it. It breaks no new ground aesthetically. It looks a lot like the CTS, which has not been a resounding success despite being a great car. For brands like Ferrari, Maserati, and Porsche, racing heritage is important as an anchor for image. In other cases, like Rolls-Royce and Bentley, it&amp;#039;s the car of kings and heads of state and so forth. The company derives its prestige from a nonperformance, aspirational thing. Brands like Cadillac and Lincoln have to ask themselves where their anchor is. Where does the prestige come from?  Cadillac was fine in the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties, and then it went downhill, along with Lincoln. That&amp;#039;s going to be tough to get back. It can only come from focused and consistent messaging on the excellence of the car, and it&amp;#039;s got to be accompanied by dynamite styling.  For Cadillac and Lincoln, the priority should be to build the best-looking full-size sedan in the world. If everything you do is the best looking with the best trim, the best leather, and the biggest wheels, the performance just has to be adequate. The car doesn&amp;#039;t have to win every high-performance comparison test. It just has to be so compelling that it forces people to consider the brand. That&amp;#039;s where the new Lincoln Continental concept succeeds. It will have some people who have never considered a Lincoln saying, &amp;quot;Boy, this thing looks great.&amp;quot; Then they&amp;#039;ll drive it, and sure enough, it will likely drive great.  Building or maintaining a luxury brand is a huge challenge, and many people don&amp;#039;t understand it. It&amp;#039;s hard to take kids out of rural America and say, &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re now the marketing manager of a luxury brand at GM, Ford, or FCA.&amp;quot; They&amp;#039;ve never lived luxury. They probably come from a modest family, and they don&amp;#039;t know how people who know and appreciate luxury think and act, or what they respond to. Thinking in terms of the luxury experience totally escapes people who consider luxury dining Red Lobster instead of Big Boy. Luxury brands are getting harder and harder to define. I fully admit my own views on them are in a state of flux. Ask me on different days and I&amp;#039;ll give you a different answer. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a25915/go-lutz-yourself-the-luxury-problem/>