MOSCOW (AFP) - Standing amid a battalion of gleaming luxury cars, 28-year-old Yevgeny Sanayev had the eyes of an awestruck teenager. And he didn't think twice before putting a name to his dream.
"The Mercedes CL500," he said, grinning broadly at the German carmaker's new luxury flagship, centerpiece of its exhibition at the 2006 Moscow International Auto Salon.
The reason for Sanayev's choice, however, had little to do with adolescent fantasy.
"I like the Mercedes I have," he said -- adding, after a modest pause, "even though it's only an S-class."
As oil dollars flood into the Russian economy, Sanayev is becoming more typical all the time, delighting the sellers of the luxury cars Russians can't seem to get enough of.
Sales of foreign cars as a whole are exploding here. In the first half of 2006, foreign car sales were up 60 percent over the first half of 2005, totaling 398,000 vehicles at a total cost of about nine billion dollars (seven billion euros).
The bulk of those sales came from moderately-priced automobiles from Korea's Hyundai, Japan's Toyota and US carmaker Ford, whose brightly-colored, jellybean-shaped compacts are replacing boxy Soviet-made Ladas and Zhigulis on Russian roads with startling rapidity.
But luxury carmakers are also being swept up in the rising tide.
In the first seven months of the year, Toyota's Lexus unit sold nearly 5,200 cars -- as many as it sold in Russia in all of 2005 -- prompting competitor Infiniti to make Russia the site of its European debut this year.
BMW's Russian sales in the first half of 2006 were up 46 percent from the same period of 2005.
And while the Moscow car market is clearly the center of the storm, the luxury car craze reaches nationwide: sales at Mercedes' regional dealer in Novosibirsk -- a Siberian city 3,200 kilometers (1,990 miles) east of the Russian capital -- shot up 67 percent last year.
Two years ago, Ford-owned luxury line Jaguar had a mere three dealerships in Russia, including two in Moscow and one in Saint Petersburg. Now, according to automotive consultant Vladislav Yevteyev, the number has increased four-fold.
"You're not going to impress anyone with a Mercedes, Audi or BMW anymore. Those cars have been around in Russia for a long time," said Yevteyev, who was representing Jaguar at the company's Moscow auto show exhibition.
"Our buyers are looking for something to set themselves apart. These tend to be third or fourth cars for our buyers. They may have a Mercedes or a BMW as a work car. The Jaguar is something they take out on the weekends."
A Mercedes sales representative said the German carmaker wasn't feeling any heat.
"Do you know how much our Russian sales grew last year? 100 percent," said Pavel Kraiushin.
With Mercedes sales leveling off elsewhere in Europe, it is no accident that the company chose the Moscow auto show as the site to unveil its new flagship CL500, the model that had the 28-year-old Sanayev dreaming of trading up.
The young Mercedes enthusiast, who described himself as a manager at a major Western company, clearly represents the new generation of Russia's luxury car buyers. But the somewhat shadier buyers of the 1990s are not entirely a thing of the past.
"There aren't as many people coming in and opening up suitcases full of dollars anymore, but it does still happen," Kraiushin said.
Jaguar's Yevteyev concurred.
"The market is growing as more people are buy cars on credit, but that's mostly mid-level cars like Fords and Toyotas," Yevteyev said.
"The people who buy these kinds of cars," he said, gesturing to the gleaming Jaguar XX convertible -- sticker price 200,000 euros, or 256,000 dollars -- "usually pay with cash."
Even the sleek XX is hardly the hottest car around. Super-luxury brands Ferrari, Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce have had Moscow showrooms for years, and all three cars have become at least as common a sight in the Moscow city center as they are in New York or London.
Analysts say that the Russian car market should boom for years to come. Turnover is set to nearly double by 2010, reaching 31 billion dollars (24 billion euros), leaving foreign carmakers racing to get as big a piece of the pie as they can.
And with over 100,000 dollar millionaires in Russia -- less than a decade after a bank default and economic collapse -- luxury carmarkers would seem to have many bright days ahead of them here.
Still, the economy's heavy reliance on oil and gas exports means a downturn could come at any time, which Mercedes' Kraiushin acknowledged.
Asked whether he expected the brand's 100 percent yearly sales growth to continue, Kraiushin hesitated, then gave a skeptical smile.
"We're hoping," he said. | 
