The BMW brand has never been healthier in the United States and thanks to the redesigned X3, which hit showrooms in January, its lead in the US luxury automobile sales race has just got wider as deliveries rose 19 percent. Since January, 19,617 units of the X3 sport-utility have been sold, 1,853 of which were sold just last month. Overall sales for September rose to 21,750, taking year-to-date BMW sales to 177,679, an increase of 13% over the same period last year.

In comparison, Daimler's Mercedes-Benz saw 21,649 sales made in September helping to increase overall sales by 6.5% to 170,058. The luxury sales leader over the past eleven years Lexus has experienced contrasting fortunes, with a 16% fall in overall sales to 135,647. BMW has been leading the line for six straight months, and industry analyst Jesse Toprak, from auto sales tracker TrueCar.com, believes the revamped X3 is behind their success. "It was one of the better executed redesigns we've seen in the luxury segment in a long while. BMW improved the interior and handling of the X3 and has done well by offering monthly lease deals as low as $459."