Luxury car sales show the rich are spending less

0 Comments | 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...