BMW, buoyed by a new line of small cars, threatens to end the 8-year reign of Toyota's Lexus as the leading US luxury brand.

BMW topped Lexus in July for the third time in 2008. BMW, the world's largest maker of luxury cars, trails Lexus by 3466 sales after 7 months, erasing 90% of the gap from the start of the year.

The US debut of the 1-Series car in March bolstered BMW's offerings with a model that gets 28 miles per gallon on the highway, blunting the effect of record gasoline prices that are sapping sales of big four-wheel-drives. Lexus has added only a sports car and a 4WD with 400 horsepower, V8 engines.  read more »

The letter F is an auspicious one in Lexus lore. Back in the mid-'80s, when the Lexus brand was still in the planning stages, Toyota insiders referred to the prospective luxury division as "Circle F." And the car that put Lexus on the map, the LS 400, was known internally as Flagship One, or F1. For 2008, the letter F is back: The company has decided to crash the ber-sport sedan party with the 2008 Lexus IS-F , a hard-edged performance car based on the IS-series sedan and aimed squarely at perennial magazine-cover fodder like the Audi RS4, BMW M3 and Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG.  read more »

Remember that mystery Lexus IS circling the ring last week? Due to the camo, guesses as to what it could be ranged from a new hybrid to a mid-cycle refresh. Turns out that the most obvious answer was right: it's a race car. Those questionable hood bumps were merely an illusion created by the camouflage. This is the TME/Team Gazoo IS 250, which competes in the ADAC endurance series and can be seen fighting for the Rennstrecken Trophy at the ring. The fastest lap?  read more »

According to the 28th annual J.D. Power and Associates Customer Service Index, car dealerships rose in customer satisfaction so far this year, due mostly to an increased satisfaction with repair work. Overall, two-thirds of the 37 brands ranked experienced gains in customer satisfaction. Dealer service overall increased to 882 on a 1,000-point scale, with Jaguar ranking highest in customer satisfaction for the second year in a row followed by Cadillac and Buick. Top ten brands below the jump.  read more »

A late night shakedown and track familiarization run ahead of the start of the Nrburgring 24H race ended with Toyota dealing with a damaged Lexus LF-A . No official reason was given for the accident, but while the team was dealing with the busted front bits and torn up tail, the sneaky spies at KGP got down to work. The stealthy photogs snapped off some clear-as-day shots of the V10 engine, stripped down interior, suspension, carbon fiber under body tray and some very C2 Corvette-like door handles. Of course, this being a race car, we can only take hints from this set up, as it's been prepped for the track, but what we can do point and laugh at the car's lap times. According to the spy report below, after repairs to the damage from the late night crack up, the LF-A did start on the grid as planned, but only managed a best lap of 9:19.757. Shoot, a newby at the wheel of a Cadillac CTS-V could have bested this car (we know race traffic probably played a roll, but we retain the liberty to compare apples to oranges). Lexus' race-prepped LF-A prototype crashed during their final late-night preparations and qualifying, before the start of the Nrburgring 24-hour race. The incident damaged the car, and squelched Team LF-A's efforts to familiarize themselves with driving night-time laps on the 'Ring. No specifics were available on the circumstances of the crash (did we say it was really, really dark?), but the LF-A limped back to the pits with damage to its lower front fender, and a serious gash to its rear quarter—both on the driver's-side. The damage was serious enough to force Team LF-A to load the car onto a flat-bed and leave the pits, in favor of Toyota's off-site 'Ring workshop used during the industry testing periods. As the team was preoccupied with their banged up prototype, our shooter managed to scoop some revealing looks at some key LF-A details, including the LF-A's V-10 engin. In addition to what we engine shot, we also managed to get our best interior shots to date. Once again, despite the stripped-down nature of this race car's innards, the interior still shows some key details that point to the production-spec interior. And as reported earlier, the interior will clearly take major cues from the last LF-A concept from Lexus. Other interesting details gathered during Team LF-A's post-crash scramble to assess the damage: the LF-A's lovely carbon-fiber aerodynamic undertray, the operation of the car's horizontally-mounted door handles, and the car's Brembo brakes and front suspension set-up. Team LF-A sources said that, in order to recover from the crash, they managed a mere two-hours sleep to get the car ready for the race the next day. The LF-A managed to make the starting grid, but within the first hour of the race the car began smoking from the rear, forcing a pit stop. The diagnosis was oil leaking from the transaxle, and a two-hour fix was required to get the LF-A back under way. At that point the LF-A had little hope of climbing the leader board. Amid varied reports on the LF-A's final results, our sources tell us that the Lexus covered 106 laps, and a best lap of 9:19.757 on lap 85. The LF-A's performance was good enough to finish in 120th place overall.  read more »