Luxury Car Sales Fell Sharply in September

(MoneyWatch)  Sales for most automotive luxury brands fell hard in September, as affluent car shoppers stayed home and watched the financial-industry crisis unfold on TV and in the newspapers.

Consumers are "keeping their hands on their wallets," said Don Esmond, senior vice president of automotive operations for Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc., in an Oct. 1 conference call.

U.S. auto sales overall, including both luxury and non-luxury brands, plunged 26.6 percent from the year-ago month, according to Autodata. That was the first time since 1993 that total light-vehicle sales fell below 1 million for any month, according to edmunds.com.

Luxury brands were already jolted by the financial industry crisis, when it looked as if it might be confined to Wall Street. But auto sales sales got even worse, when the crisis spread to Main Street.

September sales for Lexus fell 36.1 percent, to 16,045, according to AutoData. That was much worse than Lexus was doing up to this point in 2008. Year to date, Lexus sales were down 16.5 percent to 204,219.

U.S. sales for BMW dropped 29.5 percent in September, to 14,744. Mercedes-Benz, which was almost exactly even for the year through eight months, fell 16.4 percent in September. Year-to-date, that means U.S. sales for Mercedes Benz were down 1.7 percent after nine months.

In addition, Acura, Audi, Cadillac, Infiniti, Jaguar, Porsche and Volvo all posted U.S. sales for September that were worse than their sales results year to date, in some cases much worse. U.S. sales also fell for Land Rover and Saab, which were already far below year-ago sales levels, before the present credit crisis.

Even Mini, which has been riding the wave favoring small, fuel-efficient vehicles, was down 6.7 percent for the month. Nevertheless, Mini's U.S. sales were up 27.4 percent year-to-date though September.

"Everybody's down," said Mark LaNeve, vice president, GM North America vehicle sales, service and marketing. "The whole luxury market is under some pressure," he said, in a separate conference call.