I read an article from business Week about Mercedes-Benz recently.
Benz is the #3 of BMW, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz in term of global sale volume
(# of cars delivered) in the first 8 months of 2011. Back to 2001, Mercedes
was #1 of the three by large margin. Now it slips to #3.
The average age of buyers of Mercedes is ~54 while it's 48~49 for BMW and
Audi.
I guess it does tell you something about how well Mercedes was received in
the global market.