ATLANTA -

Seasonality normally plays a role in luxury vehicles losing a bit of their value and demand come winter, but for those who were looking for inventory in the high-end range this past month, the vehicles may have been hard to come by.

Luxury vehicles swept the national scarcity charts in February, according to the latest installment of vehicle scarcity data that is provided monthly to Auto Remarketing by AutoTrader.com, proving dealers and consumers alike may have had a bit of a search when looking for a particular set of rides.

"The national scarcity story is squarely in luxury vehicles," AutoTrader said in its analysis, pointing out these trends that showed up in February:

  • The BMW M Series has returned to the national certified pre-owned segment scarcity list and has claimed the top spot.
  • The Porsche Cayman continues to hold the top spot for the used late-model scarcity list for the second month in a row.
  • Nationally, the Porsche Boxster for CPO showed a significant scarcity increase; moving up four spots from January.

The CPO M Series pushed to the No. 1 spot in February, after the CPO Cadillac Escalade EXT took the top spot on the national scarcity list in January, pushing the certified Porsche Cayman down to No. 2 at the time.

Breaking the data down by designated market area, there were a few CPO and late-model-used SUVs that made the scarcity lists several times.

This is a bit of a change from January, when a variety of small and full-size pickup trucks showed up on the scarcity lists, perhaps a result of winter weather ramping up demand.

In February, the Toyota FJ Cruiser and Toyota Sequoia were both very strong across several DMAS, as well as the Volkswagen Touareg.

  • The CPO Sequoia came in at No. 2 in Dallas/Ft. Worth (it was not on the list in that DMA in January), No. 6 in Washington, D.C. (down three spots from January), No. 7 in Atlanta (not on list in January), No. 8 in Boston (down one spot from January), No. 9 in Philadelphia (down four spots from January) and No. 10 in Chicago (down three spots from January).
  • The used Sequoia came in at No. 2 in San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose (it was not on the list in that DMA in January) and No. 8 in Atlanta (down two spots from January).
     
  • The CPO FJ Cruiser came in at No. 2 in Atlanta (it was not on the list in that DMA in January), No. 3 in San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose (not on list in January), No. 4 in Dallas/Ft. Worth (up two spots from January), No. 6 in Chicago (up three spots from January), No. 8 in Washington, D.C. (down one spot from January), and No. 10 in Philadelphia (not on list in January)
     
  • The used FJ Cruiser came in at No. 4 in San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, No. 5 in Los Angeles, No. 6 in Atlanta and No. 9 in Washington, D.C. With the exception of San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, where it moved up six spots from January, the used FJ Cruiser was not scarce in any of the other three DMAs in January.
     
  • The CPO Volkswagen Touareg came in at No. 7 in Dallas/Ft. Worth (down four spots from January), No. 10 in San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose (down one spot from January), No. 10 in Houston and No. 10 in Washington, D.C.. It was not on the list in either Houston or D.C. in January.
     
  • The used Touareg came in at No. 5 in Washington, D.C. (it was not on the list in that DMA in January), No. 6 in Dallas/Ft. Worth (down one spot from January) and No. 8 in Chicago (it was not on the list in that DMA in January).

Click below to see the full list of national and DMA scarcity charts for February from AutoTrader.com: