What fiscal cliff? Luxury car sales zoom

If you're looking for a car that will send your neighbors into fits of envy, and are able to shell out the necessary cash, now might be a good time to buy. The luxury auto market is booming.

German automaker Porsche, known for its costly sports cars, says it has already broken last year's record for sales.

Even with one month left in 2012, Porsche's global sales for the first 11 months of 2012 were up 38.7% over the same period in 2011. Wednesday, the company reported it has delivered 128,978 new vehicles to customers around the world, beating last year's yearly figure of 118,868 with a month to spare.

Porsche, owned by Volkswagen (VLKAY), says its strongest markets last month were the United States -- with American sales increasing by 71.4% from a year earlier -- and China, where car sales increased by 63.4%.

"The fact that we have already surpassed the previous year's result in November is no reason for us to rest on our laurels," said Bernhard Maier, a member of Porsche's executive board of management. "On the contrary, it is an incentive to deliver maximum performance in the next year -- in spite of continued uncertainty in the marketplace."

And nowhere is that economic uncertainty more evident than in Porsche's backyard. The ongoing debt crisis in Europe is depressing economies across the continent -- and also taking a huge bite out of new-car sales there.

The European Automobile Manufacturers' Association says overall new-car registrations in Europe for the past five years are expected to have fallen by over 3 million, making 2012 the worst year for new car registrations since 1995.

But Fiat also owns the legendary Maserati line of sports cars -- and says that over the next two years it will introduce three new Maserati models while planning "a significant increase in production, reaching up to 50,000 vehicles a year by 2015."

So what's going on? Despite the European crisis, growth in emerging markets such as China are helping fuel sales of both high-end and economy cars around the world.

"The premium producers are doing very well and the lower end is doing well too," David Bailey, professor at the Coventry University Business School, tells the BBC. "What you have is a bit of a squeezed middle."

But better luxury car sales don't mean a better market for luxury goods, overall -- as even the very rich look for ways to balance their budgets.

Analysts quoted by Reuters say it will probably take at least until the second quarter of 2013 for the luxury goods market to regain its momentum. In the meantime, "European companies such as Ferragamo, French conglomerate LVMH (VLMUY) [owner of Moet & Chandon champagne, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior] and Italian peer Prada (PRDSF) have escaped the worst effects of the economic downturn this year thanks to spending by wealthy tourists from Asia and Russia."

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