People who gift cars for the holidays shifting to less pricer vehicles

We’ve all seen those commercials for many a holiday season; the commercial where a wife wakes up Christmas morning and looks out the window expecting to take in nothing more than a tranquil white Christmas scene and voila, she sees a huge bright red bow wrapped around a brand new car. Interestingly enough, it’s never a Hyundai Accent or even a low-end Mercedes for that matter, but rather an optioned out S-class or top of the line Lexus.

Seems a bit impractical, but gifting of cars has happened with some regularity. The gifting of luxury cars however, has generally been reserved for those between 30 and 60 years old who make over $100,000 per year. Even those customers now, are opting for more moderately priced vehicles, and haggling harder than ever over the price.

Though not many ‘gift cars’ are expected to be sold this holiday season, all it will take is for Mercedes or Lexus to sell a few; through October Lexus was behind Mercedes by 900 sales for the year, but has rallied back, and is vying to stay America’s top luxury car.

Let us know what you think: Does a brand new luxury car make a practical purchase for the purpose of holiday gift giving?

– By: Stephen Calogera

Source: USAToday