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These are the top luxury cars bought by people entering the segment for the first time

Let's say you just got a big promotion at work or the kids are moving out of the house, and you finally have some extra money. You decide to blow it all at once and treat yourself by upgrading your ride. Naturally, you look to a luxury automaker. What do you choose?
Models like the Audi A3 and Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class may be tailor-made to introduce buyers to the premium segment, but a new study finds that they don't garner the highest rates of non-luxury customer conquests. It turns out that a Volvo leads among folks moving up to a premium brand, and it isn't even one that's made anymore, at that.
A recent study by Polk and IHS Automotive looked at what models had the highest rates of buyers upgrading from a non-luxury segment. The information comes from its new vehicle registration data through April 2014. All ten top models boasted conquest rates of over 50 percent, but the Volvo C70 led the field with 68.01 percent of its customers coming from non-premium brands.

2019 Lexus NX F Sport gets the Black Line treatment

Lexus is debuting a limited-production NX F Sport Black Line edition at the 2019 Chicago Auto Show. Set to be sold for the 2019 model year only, the Black Line is essentially an appearance package with some added equipment as well — Lexus previously made a Black Line version of the RC coupe with similar results. The package takes a normal NX 300 F Sport and jazzes it up a bit. The NX in this spec is equipped with a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder making 235 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque. Forged 19-inch chrome wheels and a faux carbon bodyside graphic are the main exterior changes. Only three colors will be available for the Black Line, including black, silver and the white you see here. The interior gets colors to complement the exterior, with two-tone white and black seats. A black headliner is standard, as are unique Black Line floor mats, cargo mats and key fob gloves. Extra equipment comes in the form of a new Mark Levinson 14-speaker, 835-watt audio system. This audio setup isn't available on any other version of the NX crossover. Beyond that, the Black Line is a fully-loaded NX with nearly all of the available option boxes checked. Notable upgrades include navigation, blind-spot monitoring, heated/cooled seats, an auto-dimming mirror and moonroof. Lexus is limiting production to 1,000 units for this special edition, which will be arriving in dealerships in February — as in, right about now. It's available in either front-wheel or all-wheel drive. The front-drive version goes for $49,600, while all-wheel drive will run you $51,000 including destination charges. Related video:

Genesis cars win accolades, offer value — so why are sales so bad?

My high-school buddy Brent Cormier was so smitten with the Genesis G80 when he saw it at an event I hosted at SXSW in 2016 he bought a used 2013 Hyundai Genesis a short time later and fell in love with the car. "It surpasses my every expectation," said Cormier, a self-described "renaissance man" who owns and runs a real estate agency with his wife Laura, is a food service executive chef and part owner of Austin-based Thin the Herd Guitars. "I was locked into Mercedes and Audi for 10 years," he added. "And felt trapped in an endless pit of maintenance costs." After owning the Genesis over the past two years — including using it as an Uber and Lyft driver to earn extra cash — Cormier learned what some frugal luxury sedan buyers and a handful of car reviewers have discovered: Genesis offers great bang for the buck compared to other premium brands and can compete with the best in terms of performance, features and comfort. Hyundai's luxury brand also earned a prominent third-party endorsement last week when for the first time Genesis topped J.D. Power's 2018 APEAL study, surpassing German luxury-performance icon Porsche. The APEAL study (which stands for Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout) "measures owners' emotional attachment and level of excitement across 77 attributes," ranging from performance to comfort, and asks nearly 68,000 owners of new 2018 models to score vehicles on a 1,000-point scale. In its second year ranked as a stand-alone brand, Genesis earned an APEAL score that bumped it up 15 points to 884 and helped push it past Porsche — and past BMW, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volvo, Cadillac, Land Rover and Lexus, in order of ranking. Last month, Genesis also topped J.D. Power's Initial Quality Survey (IQS) for the first time this year. And both its models were awarded Top Safety Pick Plus ratings by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, among 11 Plus ratings in all for Korean vehicles. Despite high J.D. Power rankings and great reviews, Genesis U.S. sales were off 50 percent for the first six months of 2018 compared to 2017, and in June Genesis sold only 796 vehicles — the first time U.S. numbers dropped below 1,000 in a month. Part of Genesis's APEAL and IQS success can be attributed to its small product lineup: just two models, the G80 and G90 sedans, with a third, the 2019 G70, launching later this year. And while those numbers may help in J.D.