Luxury cars offer more models, but find fewer buyers

New York

OVER the past several years, luxury carmakers such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz have added a dizzying array of variations to their model lines, in hopes of attracting buyers from rival brands.

But the strategy is not working out.

Fresh evidence of the car industry's woes arrived on Monday, when carmakers reported that sales of new cars and trucks declined 3 per cent in June from a year earlier, the sixth consecutive monthly decline. And luxury cars were no exception.

In recent years, the industry has been riding high, wi…