A sobering number indeed, saddling cars with an image that auto makers didn't like at all: that of a costly luxury.

Just one example: Ellington's was the only band traveling in its own Pullman cars, a costly luxury designed to let them sidestep segregated hotels and restaurants.

These are appropriate finishing schools for the elite, but a costly and unneeded luxury for those simply seeking some education and skills.

When Sweden descended to a position of a second-rate power the alliance with the French became too costly a luxury.

The old argument, one combatted vigorously by Professor Hook, was that freedom is a costly luxury that the poor can ill afford.

For many of the students, even a semester at N.Y.U. is a costly luxury.

The time-consuming new craft became a prized if costly luxury.

We should not seek for precision where precision is an unnecessary and costly luxury.

He was gifted a Rolls Royce car and he was the only one who had this costly luxury at those times.

His plan seemed all the more sound after Sept. 11, when the conventional wisdom suggested that costly luxuries were no longer in good taste.