Mercedes, BMW Top Lexus as U.S. Luxury Auto Sales Race Narrows

The race to be the year’s top-selling luxury automobile brand in the U.S. narrowed as Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s namesake line both gained ground on Toyota Motor Corp.’s Lexus.

“Lexus has been by far the luxury leader in this market and now Mercedes and BMW have closed that gap pretty rapidly,” Joe Barker, an industry analyst with IHS Automotive, a Lexington, Massachusetts-based researcher, said before the release. “The sales race will come down to the wire -- it will come down right to the month of December.”