Despite a global pandemic, it turns out luxury vehicle sales rose in 2020. More honestly, they exploded. Ferrari increased its earnings, though shipments were down a touch. BMW M followed suit, as did Bentley, with the British maker delivering 11,206 vehicles in 2020, the highest in the brand's 101-year history.

There are several reasons for this, mostly having to do with the K-shaped recovery you may have heard about. The rich bounced back after the economic crisis. The poor did not. The top 20% have also found it easy to carry out their jobs from home during coronavirus. And those at the bottom of that top 20% still received stimulus checks, not to mention the child tax credit in the Covid relief bill, which gave them extra liquid cash. The Federal Reserve slashed interest rates too, which means people can refinance their mortgages, and stocks have surged. Basically, the people with money grew more of it, and it was spent on luxury goods like cars.

"Achieving our second-best US sales year in 2020 was a testament to the resilience of Porsche. It was an achievement, not an inevitability, after our sales dropped by about half in March and April last year," said a Porsche Cars North America spokesperson to CarBuzz. "The recovery was helped by the most diverse and complete range of cars we've ever had and we're optimistic for the year ahead."

Porsche is continuing the run with its sales numbers for the first quarter of 2021, and they are similarly impressive.

Porsche moved 2,782 911 models, up a couple hundred from last year's Q1. The 718 lineup including the Boxster and Cayman almost tripled their sales from January through March. Macan SUV sales almost doubled from 3,777 to 6,391 units and Cayenne was up as well.

Porsche only delivered little more than 200 all-electric Taycans in Q1 of last year, which means this quarter's 2,008 units sold beats it by a factor of 10. That's a little less impressive considering it was just hitting the market at that time. We asked Porsche about gorgeous and fearsome EV, and why Porsche thinks it's doing so well.

"The steady growth in sales over the past year reflects this good reception as well as the expanding model range," said a PCNA spokesperson to CarBuzz. "We now have four different variants of the first fully electric Porsche to meet different customer preferences: the standard rear-wheel drive Taycan, the 4S, the Turbo, and Turbo S. The Taycan Cross Turismo adds to the lineup further, offering additional utility with a larger luggage capacity, more rear headroom, and increased ground clearance."

The only nameplate that went down in Q1 was Panamera, of which just 451 cars found new homes, compared to 1,184 in the same time period last year. Overall, Porsche sales are up more than 44% from 2020's Q1.

"The Panamera was recently updated for the 2021 model year, and these variants are just arriving at US dealers now, so customer demand at this point is where we'd expect to see it," Porsche told us. "The Panamera and Taycan are not competitors but alternatives based on what customers want in terms such as powertrain, as well as design, interior space, and the specific flavor of the incomparable Porsche driving experience."