Luxury vehicle car" features were found on luxury cars as early as 2009. Front mounted longitudinal engines with rear-wheel drive (FR) is a common layout of luxury cars. European marques like Mercedes-Benz , BMW , and Jaguar have almost never adopted front mounted engines with front-wheel drive (FF) and retained a lineup mostly or entirely made up of FR cars. Japanese brands such as Lexus and Infiniti also have predominantly FR lineups. The FR layout, while more expensive than the FF, has been retained by these luxury manufacturers as it allows for higher performance engines (particularly the straight-6, V8, and other engine
Luxury vehicle produced in North America (such as BMW Spartanburg) instead of the luxury marque's home country. Some of these models were not traditional SUVs based on light trucks, rather they are classified as crossovers using unibody constructions. SUVs from non-luxury brands had experienced a surge in popularity through early 2000s, causing the traditional luxury marques to follow. SUVs from the luxury marques grew at almost 40 percent to more than 430,000 vehicles, excluding SUV-only brands like Hummer and Land Rover, while luxury car sales in the U.S. during 2003 suffered a 1% decline, and non-luxury SUV sales were flat. By 2004,