Lexus Wins 2009 Sales Race

The economic issues of the past few years have hurt a lot of luxury brands hard. One that got hit particularly hard has been Lexus. Sales of the brand have fallen sharply at times.

So much in fact, that many said this would be the last year of Lexus' dominance in the U.S luxury car market. Remember all of the news stories proclaiming BMW would overtake Lexus in the sales race this year? Well, those were a bit too premature.

Lexus managed to pull it out due to a weakening by BMW at the end of the year. Lexus is the top luxury car brand in the United States for 2009, its 10th consecutive year, with a total of 215,975 vehicles sold.

The closest rival was BMW, who had pulled ahead of Lexus earlier in July but fell behind after a slow fourth quarter and ended the year with 196,502 units sold. Mercedes was third with 190,604.

Of the three, Mercedes fared best in terms of decreases, ending the year down "only" 15 percent versus 21% at BMW and 17% for the victor, Lexus. With the numbers so close, the race for 2010 is anyone's guess. Maybe a different automaker will take the top spot to ring in the new decade?