HIGH-END EXPORTS...

In Kazakhstan, used Mercedes ML 350 sport utility vehicles are the rave.

And everybody covets a previously owned Mercedes S-Class, the four-door sedan of choice for diplomats, corporate titans, gangsters and fashion models.

But Americans? They're not buying much of anything in the luxury secondhand and off-lease car market, thanks to sky-high gas prices and an economy that seems to generate more bad news every day.

"It's really dead," said Gary Elias, co-owner of Richard Catena Auto Wholesalers in Teterboro, "Nobody comes in here anymore."

The only traffic these days is from an unlikely source -- the internet -- and that's changing how a New Jersey institution does business.

No longer does Elias stalk the 5-acre auto sales floor in Teterboro negotiating deals and turning over bundles of keys to car lot owners in a tradition that dates to the 1970s, when Jerome Avenue in the Bronx was the area's used-car mecca. Instead, he and five other salesmen at Richard Catena Auto Wholesalers spend most of their time gazing at flat-screen computer monitors and fielding telephone calls from automobile brokers around the globe.

Other wholesalers at the site -- more used to haggling face-to-face -- are listing their cars on sites such as cars.com, autotrader.com and even e-Bay, and finding it's paying off. Thanks to a weak dollar that makes American goods cheaper overseas -- and a strong demand for luxury autos in parts of Europe, the export market is booming. And as it happens, the U.S. has plenty to sell.

"We're getting calls from all over the world," Elias said. "It's a very strong market everywhere but here."

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