nd other practical concerns for the sake of style. The personal luxury car has often been a lucrative market segment of the post-World War II automotive market.Personal luxury cars are usually, though not necessarily, two-door coupes or convertibles with two-pa
ssenger or 2+2 seating capacity, sometimes with more seats. They are distinguished from GT cars or sports cars by their greater emphasis on comfort and convenience than on performance, although the distinction between a luxury GT and a personal luxury car is often hazy. Personal luxury cars are typically mass produced (rather than custom-bodied), sharing their mechanical components with more prosaic sedans to reduce production costs and increase profitability. A modern example is the Ford Thunderbird।Origins 
The Extended-Wheelbase Rolls-Royce Phantom gets almost an extra 10 inches in the rear seat, compared with the standard-wheelbase car, which has a roomy back seat to begin with. The long-wheelbase car goes from 0 to 60 in only two-tenths of a second slower than the lighter standard-wheelbase car. Having arrived in a hurry, rear-seat passengers can make a graceful entrance via the rear-hinged "suicide" doors in the back (understandably, Rolls-Royce calls them "coach doors"). Ian Robertson, chairman and CEO, said that before Rolls-Royce launched the longer car in 2005, the company estimated it would accoun
t for about 10% of Phantom production worldwide. In fact, he said it accounts for about 25%. "The EWB has taken all of us by surprise," he said in a presentation in May, 2007. Rolls-Royce sells an average of about 800 Phantoms a year worldwide, including about 350 in the U.S. in 2006.
The long-wheelbase Lexus LS 460L is a fraction of a second quicker from 0 to 60 mph than the hybrid LS 600h L-and just over $32,000 cheaper. True, the hybrid powertrain, teaming a 5.0-liter V-8 gasoline engine with an electric motor, produces 438 hp vs. 380 hp for the conventional, 4.6-liter V-8 in the LS 460L. However, the hybrid pays a big penalty in weight: It's more than 700 pounds heavier (717, to be exact), which means it t
akes the hybrid 5.5 seconds to go from 0 to 60 mph. Like other hybrids, the LS 600h L gets better gas mileage in city driving than the conventional car, but the conventional car outdoes the hybrid on the highway. Lexus says on its Web site that the LS "may make the corporate jet jealous," but the hybrid probably doesn't give the corporate jet too much to worry about. For less than half the money, the Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG has the same hand-built, 604-hp, V-12 e
ngine as the Maybach 62 S. It also weighs more than 1,300 pounds less than the Maybach, so it leaps from 0 to 60 mph significantly faster. It's slower than a Porsche 911 Turbo-but not by much (about 0.8 seconds). The S65 customer will have to forgo the possibility of fully reclining rear seats like the Maybach's and some of the other rear-seat appointments, like a holder for specially designed Champagne flutes, but there are plenty of luxury features to help compensate, such as a 600-watt sound system and an extra $230,000 in your checkbook.
t for about 10% of Phantom production worldwide. In fact, he said it accounts for about 25%. "The EWB has taken all of us by surprise," he said in a presentation in May, 2007. Rolls-Royce sells an average of about 800 Phantoms a year worldwide, including about 350 in the U.S. in 2006.The long-wheelbase Lexus LS 460L is a fraction of a second quicker from 0 to 60 mph than the hybrid LS 600h L-and just over $32,000 cheaper. True, the hybrid powertrain, teaming a 5.0-liter V-8 gasoline engine with an electric motor, produces 438 hp vs. 380 hp for the conventional, 4.6-liter V-8 in the LS 460L. However, the hybrid pays a big penalty in weight: It's more than 700 pounds heavier (717, to be exact), which means it t
akes the hybrid 5.5 seconds to go from 0 to 60 mph. Like other hybrids, the LS 600h L gets better gas mileage in city driving than the conventional car, but the conventional car outdoes the hybrid on the highway. Lexus says on its Web site that the LS "may make the corporate jet jealous," but the hybrid probably doesn't give the corporate jet too much to worry about. For less than half the money, the Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG has the same hand-built, 604-hp, V-12 e
ngine as the Maybach 62 S. It also weighs more than 1,300 pounds less than the Maybach, so it leaps from 0 to 60 mph significantly faster. It's slower than a Porsche 911 Turbo-but not by much (about 0.8 seconds). The S65 customer will have to forgo the possibility of fully reclining rear seats like the Maybach's and some of the other rear-seat appointments, like a holder for specially designed Champagne flutes, but there are plenty of luxury features to help compensate, such as a 600-watt sound system and an extra $230,000 in your checkbook.The Jaguar XJ Super 
8 is a cross between the extra-luxurious, long-wheelbase XJ Vanden Plas trim and equipment package, and the high-performance, standard-wheelbase XJR variant. Luxury appointments include not quite an extra inch of rear-seat legroom, even though the wheelbase is five inches longer than the standard wheelbase; six-way power-adjustable rear seats; four-zone climate control; and a rear-seat DVD entertainment system that includes monitors in the back of the front-seat head restraints. The central performance feature is a supercharged, 400-hp, 4.2-liter V-8 engine.
The antecedents of the personal luxury car are the expensive, often custom-bodied sporting luxury cars of the 1920s and 1930s, some of the most prestigious of which were built by Alfa Romeo, Bugatti, Delage, Delahaye, Duesenberg, and Mercedes-Benz. Two well-known examples were the Duesenberg SJ and Mercedes SSK: tremendously fast and stratospherically expensive automobiles eschewing the comfort of pure luxury cars while being too large and heavy to be true sports cars. They nonetheless offered distinctive style, impeccable craftsmanship, and strong performance for wealthy buyers (including
film and music stars, kings, and gangsters) who wanted to project a dashing image. The Great Depression and World War II eroded the market for these expensive, bespoke cars, but the postwar era still produced noteworthy examples like the Bentley Continental R Type with its fine two-door body built by H.J. Mulliner. A related, primarily postwar phenomenon was the grand tourer (GT), a relatively comfortable, high-performance car intended for high-speed, long-distance travel. Italy became a major producer of GTs, with marques like Ferrari and Maserati offering distinctive, often custom-bodied models of considerable performance. Alfa Romeo never recovered from the Second World War. This void was filled by Ferrari.
Both the bespoke luxury car and the GT were beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest buyers, and the 1950s saw a growing trend in both the United States and Europe towards mass-market "specialty cars" catering to drivers who coveted the image of the bespoke machinery, but who could not afford the cost -- and to wealthier buyers who could afford the genuine article, but disliked the inconvenience and complexity of servicing and repairing it, especially outside of a major urban area where foreign car dealerships were few and far between. Buyers were also interested in automatic transmission, air conditioning, power steering, and other convenience options not generally offered on GTs or sports cars of the day. In its August, 1967 issue, Motor Trend magazine noted that the domestic "luxury speciality cars" of the day (Ford Thunderbird, Buick Riviera, Oldsmobile Toronado, Cadillac Eldorado and Pontiac Grand Prix) appealed to buyers who wanted reliability and durability not found in the exotic European imports of the 1950s along with those aforementioned American-style options w
hich kept them buying American cars." M/T added that "Motorists of just about every stripe can find a now car with pleasing and distinctive lines, good performance and all the things that go to make a car enjoyable."
The result was a burgeoning market for "factory customs," models using standard or mostly standard engines and other mechanical components, but with unique styling. A prominent early example was the 1953 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, whose customized styling gave it a price tag nearly twice that of a standard Cadillac rag top despite nearly identical underpinnings.
The personal luxury car market segment in the United States was largely defined by the Ford Thunderbird. The first Thunderbird, launched in 1955 and sold through 1957, was a two-seat convertible, but despite its compact size and respectable performance, Ford made no claims that the softly sprung T-bird was a true sports car, calling it a "personal car." Although some Th
underbirds were quite fast for their time, and some successfully competed in various forms of competition, it was more of a compact luxury car than a GT.
In 1958, Ford transformed the Thunderbird into a bulkier, four-seat model with a large array of comfort features and styling gimmicks and found it a tremendous success, outselling any of the earlier, two-seat T-birds. This market segment was previously the province of the Studebaker Golden Hawk, a highly styled hardtop in the GT tradition with muscle car performance. While the four-seat Thunderbirds had only average performance and mediocre handling, their airplane and rocketship-inspired design cues found a receptive audience.
While Europe's slower economic recovery meant that it did not venture as much into this market until the 1960s, there were exceptions like the DKW 1000Sp, the custom-bodied Alfa Romeo 1900 Sprint, BMW 507, and Mercedes 190SL were popular in the personal luxury market, albeit on a smaller scale. By the 1960s models like the Jaguar E-Type, BMW CS coupes, Citroën SM, and Mercedes SL roadsters, while more expensive and somewhat smaller than their U.S. equivalents, were very much aimed at the same type of market. Indeed, the initial 6-series BMW's of 1977 were very comparable to models like the Riviera: they shared most of their mechanical components with contemporary sedans, offering very similar (and even slightly inferior) performance and less practicality at a higher price, but their distinctive style and image made them desirable automobiles.
The decline of the muscle car in the early 1970s coincided with a strong upswing in the personal luxury segment, as buyers shifted emphasis from performance to comfort, although there were some muscle cars that could be classified as personal luxury, such as the Dodge Charger (SE models). The models of that time, including the Lincoln Continental Mark series, Cadillac Eldorado, and Ford Thunderbird, largely abandoned any pretense of sport for a more intimate, luxury-oriented feel, with plush inte
riors and vintage styling cues like Rolls Royce-style radiator grilles, opera windows, and vinyl tops. They were mechanically uninspired other than the occasional gimmick, but despite high prices and poor fuel economy, they sold well.
8 is a cross between the extra-luxurious, long-wheelbase XJ Vanden Plas trim and equipment package, and the high-performance, standard-wheelbase XJR variant. Luxury appointments include not quite an extra inch of rear-seat legroom, even though the wheelbase is five inches longer than the standard wheelbase; six-way power-adjustable rear seats; four-zone climate control; and a rear-seat DVD entertainment system that includes monitors in the back of the front-seat head restraints. The central performance feature is a supercharged, 400-hp, 4.2-liter V-8 engine.The antecedents of the personal luxury car are the expensive, often custom-bodied sporting luxury cars of the 1920s and 1930s, some of the most prestigious of which were built by Alfa Romeo, Bugatti, Delage, Delahaye, Duesenberg, and Mercedes-Benz. Two well-known examples were the Duesenberg SJ and Mercedes SSK: tremendously fast and stratospherically expensive automobiles eschewing the comfort of pure luxury cars while being too large and heavy to be true sports cars. They nonetheless offered distinctive style, impeccable craftsmanship, and strong performance for wealthy buyers (including
film and music stars, kings, and gangsters) who wanted to project a dashing image. The Great Depression and World War II eroded the market for these expensive, bespoke cars, but the postwar era still produced noteworthy examples like the Bentley Continental R Type with its fine two-door body built by H.J. Mulliner. A related, primarily postwar phenomenon was the grand tourer (GT), a relatively comfortable, high-performance car intended for high-speed, long-distance travel. Italy became a major producer of GTs, with marques like Ferrari and Maserati offering distinctive, often custom-bodied models of considerable performance. Alfa Romeo never recovered from the Second World War. This void was filled by Ferrari.Both the bespoke luxury car and the GT were beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest buyers, and the 1950s saw a growing trend in both the United States and Europe towards mass-market "specialty cars" catering to drivers who coveted the image of the bespoke machinery, but who could not afford the cost -- and to wealthier buyers who could afford the genuine article, but disliked the inconvenience and complexity of servicing and repairing it, especially outside of a major urban area where foreign car dealerships were few and far between. Buyers were also interested in automatic transmission, air conditioning, power steering, and other convenience options not generally offered on GTs or sports cars of the day. In its August, 1967 issue, Motor Trend magazine noted that the domestic "luxury speciality cars" of the day (Ford Thunderbird, Buick Riviera, Oldsmobile Toronado, Cadillac Eldorado and Pontiac Grand Prix) appealed to buyers who wanted reliability and durability not found in the exotic European imports of the 1950s along with those aforementioned American-style options w
hich kept them buying American cars." M/T added that "Motorists of just about every stripe can find a now car with pleasing and distinctive lines, good performance and all the things that go to make a car enjoyable."The result was a burgeoning market for "factory customs," models using standard or mostly standard engines and other mechanical components, but with unique styling. A prominent early example was the 1953 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, whose customized styling gave it a price tag nearly twice that of a standard Cadillac rag top despite nearly identical underpinnings.
The personal luxury car market segment in the United States was largely defined by the Ford Thunderbird. The first Thunderbird, launched in 1955 and sold through 1957, was a two-seat convertible, but despite its compact size and respectable performance, Ford made no claims that the softly sprung T-bird was a true sports car, calling it a "personal car." Although some Th
underbirds were quite fast for their time, and some successfully competed in various forms of competition, it was more of a compact luxury car than a GT.In 1958, Ford transformed the Thunderbird into a bulkier, four-seat model with a large array of comfort features and styling gimmicks and found it a tremendous success, outselling any of the earlier, two-seat T-birds. This market segment was previously the province of the Studebaker Golden Hawk, a highly styled hardtop in the GT tradition with muscle car performance. While the four-seat Thunderbirds had only average performance and mediocre handling, their airplane and rocketship-inspired design cues found a receptive audience.
While Europe's slower economic recovery meant that it did not venture as much into this market until the 1960s, there were exceptions like the DKW 1000Sp, the custom-bodied Alfa Romeo 1900 Sprint, BMW 507, and Mercedes 190SL were popular in the personal luxury market, albeit on a smaller scale. By the 1960s models like the Jaguar E-Type, BMW CS coupes, Citroën SM, and Mercedes SL roadsters, while more expensive and somewhat smaller than their U.S. equivalents, were very much aimed at the same type of market. Indeed, the initial 6-series BMW's of 1977 were very comparable to models like the Riviera: they shared most of their mechanical components with contemporary sedans, offering very similar (and even slightly inferior) performance and less practicality at a higher price, but their distinctive style and image made them desirable automobiles.
The decline of the muscle car in the early 1970s coincided with a strong upswing in the personal luxury segment, as buyers shifted emphasis from performance to comfort, although there were some muscle cars that could be classified as personal luxury, such as the Dodge Charger (SE models). The models of that time, including the Lincoln Continental Mark series, Cadillac Eldorado, and Ford Thunderbird, largely abandoned any pretense of sport for a more intimate, luxury-oriented feel, with plush inte
riors and vintage styling cues like Rolls Royce-style radiator grilles, opera windows, and vinyl tops. They were mechanically uninspired other than the occasional gimmick, but despite high prices and poor fuel economy, they sold well.