For the super rich, just any luxury vehicle won't do.

Actor Ben Affleck presented one to actress and fiancee Jennifer Lopez, according to the tabloids--and got it back when they split.

Detroit Piston basketball player Rasheed Wallace said he likes his because "you get your own tree."

For Affleck, it was the new $320,000 Rolls-Royce Phantom. And for Wallace, it's his $357,000 Maybach 62, built by the Mercedes division of DaimlerChrysler AG.

The movie and basketball stars are among the super-wealthy Americans helping to increase U.S. sales of ultra-luxury automobiles, including Ford Motor Co.'s $234,260 Aston-Martin V-12 Vanquish.

"You get to pick your color of the exterior, interior, the kind of wood you want, the color of the leather and suede inside, and you get your own tree," said Wallace, in telling Rides magazine what he likes about the Maybach.

By dedicating a single log to each car's interior trim, Maybach can keep matching wood on hand in case repairs are necessary, Wallace said. This is the sort of coddling that high-end consumers crave.

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd., which is owned by Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, said it's increasing the annual sales target in the U.S. by 25 percent to 500 cars from the original figure of 400, Ward's Automotive Reports reported.

Phantom's makers are gloating just a bit that their vehicle seems to be outselling Maybach. Though neither company releases official sales numbers, a survey of registrations by R.L. Polk & Co., published in April in Automotive News, showed Rolls with 113 deliveries in the first quarter of 2004, Aston Martin with 93, Maybach with 78 and Bentley with 73.

David Fischer, owner of Rolls-Royce and Bentley dealerships in Troy, Mich., said he's sold about a dozen Phantoms in the past year. "All these brands are selling to exclusive people," Fischer said, "but you still have to give them reasons to buy the car. I think Rolls knocked the cover off the ball."

The dealers and automakers are too discreet to reveal who their clients are--yet they're tickled when the tabloids gossip about which celebrities are driving which brands.

BMW has built a high-tech Rolls-Royce final assembly plant near Goodwood, England, where the German-manufactured mechanical components and sheet metal and English upholstery are turned into the final product. Prospective customers are encouraged to visit.

The apparent early success of the Rolls-Royce Phantom speaks once more to the marketing prowess of BMW, whose MINI and Rolls-Royce models have piggy-backed on the reputation and technology assets of the main BMW brand. Combined sales of BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce in the U.S. are up an estimated 3.5 percent through Aug. 1.

BMW displayed a prototype of a convertible Rolls-Royce at Geneva earlier this year, a model it hasn't committed to manufacture, though many in the industry speculate is inevitable, now that Phantom has been warmly received.

The Maybach franchise could be tougher to expand. Unlike Rolls-Royce, a name long associated with British nobility, even many wealthy sophisticates don't know what Maybach is. Mercedes, therefore, must devote time and effort cultivating prospects at exclusive dinners and cocktail parties.

And flogging the Maybach too hard could backfire, calling into question the exclusivity of Mercedes' most expensive S Class sedans. starting at $82,700 for the $500, which now attract many wealthy customers with features similar to Maybach's. Sales of Mercedes cars were flat through August in the U.S., compared with last year, at about 107,000.

The allure to automakers of ultra-luxury brands isn't mainly the profit they generate; it's also what they can do for the prestige of the entire family.

Earlier this year, Toyota Motor Corp. executives mentioned that Lexus is considering a super-luxury model. And some General Motors Corp. executives are lobbying hard for development of a high-end Cadillac, similar to the prototype with a 16-cylinder engine shown two years ago.

Proceeding with the Sixteen could be costly, uncertain and a drain on General Motors' engineering talent. Yet insofar as such ultra-cars nourish the egos of the automakers that build them, they definitely will remain on the agenda.