When I say brand conscious, it's kind of US biased. Brand conscious in one country may mean something completely different in another in terms of which brans you would buy over another. In the US, Mercedes-Benz and BMW are kind of the yuppie cars with Audi slowly gaining in the market. As much as I want Audi to succeed, I also feel more special being an Audi fan since we're the underdog that only people in the know are aware is a good brand (or at least it used to be this way). The day I see an A8 chromed out in a rap video I'll have to kill someone.