Personal luxury car

A personal luxury car is an American car classification describing a highly styled, luxury vehicle with an emphasis on image over practicality. Accenting the comfort and satisfaction of its owner and driver above all else, the personal luxury car sometimes sacrifices passenger capacity, cargo room, and fuel economy in favor of style and perceived cachet, as well as offering a high level of features and trim. Typically mass-produced by employing a two-door platform with common mechanical components beneath their distinctive exteriors, these vehicles were a lucrative segment of the post-World War II automotive marketplace. In the U.S., the four-seat 1958 Ford Thunderbird (second generation) arguably defined the personal luxury car market segment.

Characteristics

Personal luxury cars are characteristically two-door coupés or convertibles with two-passenger or 2+2 seating. They are distinguished on the performance end from GT and sports cars by their greater emphasis on comfort and convenience. Even though they usually contain higher horsepower engines and the necessary support systems for the higher horsepower output (transmissions, tires, brakes, steering, etc.); these larger power trains usually only bring these vehicles back to the power-to-weight ratios that they would have had if their gross vehicle weights had not been increased to accommodate the installation of their luxury features and accessories. On the luxury scale, by their appointments, features, and style, there is great variability within the market; however, this is not absolute but merely a general trend.

Luxury vehicle

Luxury vehicle is a marketing term for a vehicle that provides luxury — pleasant or desirable features beyond strict necessity — at increased expense (see luxury goods).

The term suggests a vehicle with higher quality equipment, better performance, more precise construction, comfort, higher design, technologically innovative modern, or features that convey an image, brand, status, or prestige, or any other 'discretionary' feature or combination of them. The term is also broad, highly variable and relative. It is a perceptual, conditional and subjective attribute that may be comprehended differently by different people; "what may be luxury for one may be premium for another."

In contemporary usage, the term may be applied to any vehicle type— including sedan, coupe, hatchback, station wagon, and convertible body styles, as well as to minivans,crossovers, or sport utility vehicles and to any size vehicle, from small to large—in any price range. Moreover, there is a convergence in the markets and a resulting confusion of luxury with high price: where there may have been a clear difference in price between luxury and others, there is no longer an absolute separation between premium and luxury, with what may be premium brands now more expensive than the equivalent so-called luxury ones.

Luxury Car (film)

Luxury Car (Chinese: 江城夏日; pinyin: Jiāng chéng xià rì; literally: "River City Summer Days") is a 2006 film directed by Wang Chao. The film was produced by China's Bai Bu Ting Media and France's Rosem Films, and in association with Arte France Cinéma.

Luxury Car premiered on May 22, 2006 at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the side competition for the Prix un certain regard.

Plot

The film follows an old man from the countryside who goes to Wuhan to search for his missing son, who his dying wife has requested to see one last time. In Wuhan, he meets his daughter, a karaoke bar escort who introduces him to an old police officer who offers to help. It soon becomes apparent to both the father and the policeman that the mobsters running the daughter's karaoke bar and the son's disappearance are linked.

Cast