why can't american cars dominate the luxury vehicle market?

have you seen the inside of fiesta, focus, cruz, etc..?

i think your question should be why people don't talk about lincoln, buick, etc when they talk about luxury cars.

You're confusing makes and models.
All 3 you mentioned are econo boxes.

Because average American's don't like luxury cars.

You should teach a trolling 101 course. Game is definitely tight. Please teach us sensei.

Give the Americans another 10 years. I see Lincoln with the new Continental being a hit with the seniors. Cadillac will have a more diverse lineup of cuvs to catch more buyers.

nasa25 wrote: ↑You should teach a trolling 101 course. Game is definitely tight. Please teach us sensei.

LOL trudat.

Anyway, to humor the OP, the Yankees somehow still don't have it. They don't have the appeal or sophistication yet and their designs are still unsophisticated also, almost always requiring more space (their cars are HUGE) or displacement (>6.x L lol, ofc it's gonna have high hp/tq, it better!!) to order to compete w/ the foreigners. There are glimmers of hope like the mag-ride GM? invented used by many supercars now. Cadillac is kinda trying to get out of the funk but needs something more rather than clinging onto the CTS, which is srsly aged. I can't even think of any luxury wrt Lincoln. Are there other Yankee luxury brands? They don't even register lol.

They did, but they started being lazy and was just rebranding cars. Only until recently Cadillac started to individually develop a new platform GM Alpha.

hipster wrote: ↑when you think luxury, you think BMW, Audi, Benz. Why can't american cars dominate this segment of the car market? Why can't it be that when we talk about luxury vehicles, we can think of fiesta, forcus, chevy cruz, etc...? are american car makers afraid to compete against BMW, Audi, Benz? what's holding them back?

The big migration occurred a lot earlier than many here even know. Many here not even been born yet so may not see the relevance.
I'm most referring to the late 80's early 90's surge of consumer interests with the likes of BMW 320's, Benz 190's, Audi 4000/5000's and quattro's. These entry models paved the way for the evolution of these manufacturers to make bigger and better models.
A major problem with the big domestic 3 was that they mostly associated luxury and performance with big block V8 engines. They also refused to accept EFI as superior over carburetors. They we're slow to adapt and fell way behind in technology, of course this is just a small sample.
Simple things such as the manufacturing of vinyls, seat fabrics, dashboard materials, instrumentation, the elimination of the *cough third row front bench seating *cough, made imports in general so much more appealing.
The luxury segment for these import manufacturers just evolved from there.



It's important to note that all import manufacturers did not just land in N.A. and became status from start. For the most part all of them we're laughed at as fads and crap cars.
Honda landed here with only 3 models, Civic, Accord, Prelude and sold cars under just those 3 for over a decade. They did same when Acura nameplate was created, Integra, Vigor, Legend.
Toyota was similar but did venture into a more luxurious model called the Cressida but failed. Many here won't remember this.

One thing the domestic 3 did do was influence the minivan, suv and truck market for all imprt manufacturers. None of the import makers would ever have had models in these segments if they never ventured into the N.A market.(referring to consumer not commercial)
Same goes for luxury branding Acura, Lexus, Infinity. These luxury brands were the result of mimicking what GM did(Cadi, Buick, Olds, Pontiac, Chev) and what Ford did(Lincoln) and Chrysler(Dodge, Plymouth, Jeep etc)
Segmenting a separate luxury brand helped them all capture more market share than they would have if they we're just one brand. Mazda is a good example of this with their failed 929.

Why don't people have common sense these days?

bomber17 wrote: ↑They did, but they started being lazy and was just rebranding cars. Only until recently Cadillac started to individually develop a new platform GM Alpha.

The Chevy Cavalier turning into the..what...Caddy Cimarron? comes to mind. LMAO. 5 different trims on the same freaking car. What a freaking joke. Talk about lazy mkting w/ no real differentiation and thinking consumers are a bunch of dopes. Serves them right that they're playing waaay catch-up now.

Extremely poor resale value.

If one has to spend like $100,000 on a caddy cts-v, then after 3 yrs, they may fetch the owner like $40,000 at most

tranquility922 wrote: ↑The Chevy Cavalier turning into the..what...Caddy Cimarron? comes to mind. LMAO. 5 different trims on the same freaking car. What a freaking joke. Talk about lazy mkting w/ no real differentiation and thinking consumers are a bunch of dopes. Serves them right that they're playing waaay catch-up now.

As if other manufacturers didn't do same and still do to this day.

Late 89/90's Lexus ES250/300 was nothing more than a glorified Camry V6

At that same time period some may argue the Accord was same if not superior to the sister platform Acura Vigor with that silly 5 cyl engine.

mikeymike1 wrote: ↑As if other manufacturers didn't do same and still do to this day.

Late 89/90's Lexus ES250/300 was nothing more than a glorified Camry V6

At that same time period some may argue the Accord was same if not superior to the sister platform Acura Vigor with that silly 5 cyl engine.

Kinda, but at least the higher trims had a better engine, at least 1 variation previously, can't recall which maker/car. Still, nobody does it as blatantly as GM, just basically slapping on a Caddy badge and charging a premium. At least the Japanese ones made a real effort to differentiate. Anyway, Yankee cars still left much to be desired, back then and still now.

hipster wrote: ↑when you think luxury, you think BMW, Audi, Benz. Why can't american cars dominate this segment of the car market? Why can't it be that when we talk about luxury vehicles, we can think of fiesta, forcus, chevy cruz, etc...? are american car makers afraid to compete against BMW, Audi, Benz? what's holding them back?

Because all they care about is how much hp and cylinders a "MOTOR" has. LOL

Because the companies, the workers, managers have a culture of entitlement. Instead of working to master their craft, they're spending that time negotiating benefits, doing the minimal amount of work, etc. It's in their culture. The source of luxury, look at the history of Europe. The nations of Kings and Empire. So they also have a longer history of art, wealth, opulence.

The ironic thing is that all you are putting down the Cadillac/Lincol which are 3x better and more reliable than a BMW or an Audi. More comfort and more room too.

Since this is RFD, the better question is why aren't the Japanese luxury makers dominating the market? Only Lexus does good and only does good in North America (the Germans do better worldwide). We need the luxury Corolla & Civic for all those true RFD ballers.

Japanese and American luxury brands don't have as wide a presence as MB/BMW/Audi. There are lots of countries where no one has heard of Lincoln or Infiniti or even Lexus, but MB/BMWs are very popular