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The 2018 Lexus LC 500 to co-star in Marvel's Black Panther

The Marvel Cinematic Universe may be known for big action and colorful superheroes, but cars have always played a supporting role in the films. Iron Man in particular has showcased a number of new or future cars, including the Acura NSX and Audi R8. Black Panther, the upcoming film about T'Challa and the advanced African nation of Wakanda will feature the wonderful new Lexus LC 500 coupe. The film is set to debut February 16, 2018. We've driven the new Lexus LC 500 a few times now, and it hasn't failed to impress. Whether it's on a track or simply cruising around town, the new luxury coupe has proved itself to be a fantastic follow-up to the much-loved but hugely expensive LFA. Killer looks and an amazing soundtrack make this one of the best GTs we've driven in a long time. The car will presumably be driven by Black Panther himself, though we'll have to wait until next year to see the pair in action.

6 luxury car brands to watch in 2024

2023 was a healthy year for the auto industry, and even with incentives returning and dealer lots filling up, there's plenty to like about the market if you build luxury automobiles, and we expect 2024 to be more of the same, which makes luxury-segment rivalries all the more interesting. Top luxury car brand rivalries? Well, that sounds downright uncivilized. But we know better, don't we? And when every quarterly sales update is an opportunity to remind somebody else that they bought the wrong status symbol, well, who can resist? Certainly not the diehard customers who fly their favorite brands' banners high.  Read more: Auto sales: Industry records best year since 2019 Read more: 2023 auto sales and 2024 preview: Ford Bronco vs. Jeep Wrangler This is a tricky segment to define, but essentially, we're looking at luxury car brands with depth to their portfolios and dealerships that exist to attract real-world customers. The Bentleys, Rolls-Royces and McLarens of the world are luxury cars, certainly, but we're more concerned with brands that have a bit more mass appeal — manufacturers who treat supply constraints as fiascos rather than features. If you disagree with our selections, feel free to let us know in the comments.  And since we're mostly concerned with finishing order, the luxury brands and totals featured here may change as new data come in throughout 2024. Due to the wild swings of the past several years, we're treating 2023 as the baseline by which we'll measure sales performance. And rather than rank brands vs. their finishing order in 2022, when supply-chain and inflationary issues still played havoc with sales figures, we're starting 2024 off with a clean slate.  The mainstream luxury segment is always a dogfight, but with their varied approaches to electrification all of the major luxury brands are in the midst of reshaping the premium landscape. Who is doing it right? Well, according to U.S. shoppers, the usual suspects are up to their old tricks.

Lexus LC 500 stands apart from the go-fast sport luxury crowd

We at Autoblog, by and large, love the LC 500. For its concept-car looks, derived almost verbatim from the 2012 LF-LC concept. And for the charming V8, which growls and burbles appropriately but doesn't subscribe to the faux-backfire trend. Our Editor-in-Chief, Greg Migliore, perfectly summarized the LC 500's appeal when he drove it recently: "Evening walkers cast curious glances. A guy in an old pickup almost sideswiped me as he gawked while taking the corner fast. It's a celebrity car. It also sounds good; the 5.0-liter V8 growls and rumbles. Style and muscle. An excellent execution." I just spent a week in it, my first encounter with the car, and it made me think most about how it's positioned in the Lexus lineup. Notably, it's not positioned as the performance extreme. This is refreshing, because not every car needs to attempt a Nurburgring time. If you want to hunt road-course records in this day and age, it takes massive power and massive traction. We're getting to the point, perhaps well beyond it, where that is doing the stopwatch more favors than the driver. Part of this is decades of marketing putting the sportiest variant of a particular vehicle above the most luxurious in the pecking order of regular vehicles, which doesn't make a ton of sense if you think about it. In the 1960s, the ultimate Mercedes-Benz was the 600 Grosser limousine, which was built like a Rolex bank vault. It had a huge engine, but the point was to move the massive thing around, not for the sheer pleasure of it. Ironically, the Grosser's engine made its way later into the 300 SEL 6.3, turning a large and luxurious sedan into a surprisingly capable bruiser, and then into the Rote Sau race car. Arguably, this was an impetus for the sort of sporty arms race I'm decrying. (Now, when you talk about supercars, or ultimate luxury cars like a Bentley or Maybach, this distinction makes less sense. But let's limit our discussion to vehicles the well-heeled average consumer could actually purchase — things at the upper end of the ranges of normal car manufacturers.) This takes us to the Lexus LC 500. Unlike Mercedes, whose Mercedes-AMG cars are on top of the regular car pecking order, Audi's RS line, BMW's M Division, and Porsche's various Turbos, the LC 500 is simply a large, powerful car. It's comfortable, it looks interesting, and it has more than enough grunt to get out of its own way. There are Sport and Performance options packages, but there's no LC F or F-Line trim available.