Luxury car sales show the rich are spending less

USA TODAY, April, 2008 by Chris Woodyard

Suddenly the rich aren't getting richer -- and luxury car dealers are joining other high-end retailers in feeling the pinch.

Adding to a turnabout in once-resilient upscale goods, most luxury car brands saw sales drops last month.

Mercedes-Benz softened 3.7% compared with March last year, Autodata reports. BMW fell 8.7%, and Lexus plummeted 13.6%.

Overall, luxury vehicle sales are off almost 13% this year.

Purveyors of the finer things in life are finding their well-heeled customers are caught in the same economic riptide tugging at the less well-off.

"It's a recession that has a double whammy: Your real estate is down, and your investment portfolio is down," says Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute. "Even the ultrawealthy are saying, 'Let me pause here and see what's going on.'"

The biggest impact is at the entry level of the high-end ...