I had to un-stick the sticky. For some reason, sticky posts make traffic drop. I guess too many people look at the same headline on their devices and just assume that nothing new has been posted.
Just a little note in passing. In 1976, when I was 19, my Aunt Anne, who was an heiress but frugal most of her life, treated herself to an extravagance: a top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz. It was a 450SEL, and it cost $20,000.
A few years later, my father decided to buy my mother a Mercedes like her sister's as a birthday or maybe anniversary present. I went to the dealer with him. He owned a 1971 Buick Electra 225, and he was fond of saying, when I asked if I could borrow the Buick, "son, that's a six-thousand-dollar automobile." As in, too expensive to risk with the likes of you. A Cadillac, which was what my father really wanted but which I had talked him out of because the writers in Car & Driver scorned them, was the only American car you could buy that was more expensive. When we went to the Mercedes dealership, my father asked to look at the second most expensive Mercedes, one down from the top of the line. My father did not approve of foreign cars, I should add, and he was frugal too, having been born in the year of the Crash with parents who were scarred by the Depression. He looked the car over on the showroom floor, skeptically, and asked his favorite question, "how much?"
I don't know what he expected.
"You won't spend more than twenty thousand dollars," the salesman answered. To express his high dudgeon at that, my father ostentatiously said not one more single word to the salesman, and walked out of the dealership in silence. He expressed his indignation rather more floridly at me on the ride home. My mother did not get her new car.
Inflation is a thing
An article at The Street, by Jena Greene, posted yesterday, points out that now, there are only three new cars left in America that sell for less than $20,000. She names them:
- Kia Rio subcompact sedan: starting at $17,875
- Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback: starting at $17,340
- Nissan Versa sedan: starting at $16,925
I read once, a long time ago, that peoples' sense of the value of money tends to calcify at about age 50. We're mentally flexible up till that point, but afterwards it increasingly starts to seem like everything costs too much. I don't know if that's true.
I'm off this morning to Syracuse, to help my neighbor and her daughter pick up the daughter's new Honda. I don't know what the sticker price is, but I do know it costs more in nominal dollars than my Aunt's fancy Mercedes. Time marches on.
Mike
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Featured Comments from:
Gary: "I don't know if it's true that a person's perception of the value of money tends to calcify at age 50. I do know that inflation of late has been very real. I have a phrase to describe the phenomenon: Everything Everywhere Twice as Much."
garlo: "According to the St. Louis Fed, median sales price of house sold in the US back in Q4 1976 was only $45,500. That is less than 1/10 of sales price by the end of Q4 2022. So I guess car price inflation is not as bad as that of housing cost? Thanks for your efforts to keep this educational site running. Much appreciated."
Stan B.: "I distinctly remember a professor in my second year of college complaining (circa '74) that "there's absolutely no way you can get a new car for less than $2,000!" That afternoon at the school library I saw a print ad for a new Beetle- '$1,998.'"
Mike replies: I took my first driving test days after my 16th birthday, but I had already been saving up for a car for two years at that time. My dad had said he would put me on his insurance, which in those days made insurance for an additional car cheap. As soon as I had enough for a decent used car, my dad changed his conditions—he specified that he would only add me to his insurance if I bought a new car (he didn't actually want me to succeed). So I buckled down and started saving for that sub-$2k VW. But that was the early '70s, one of the times in history when the prices of cars skyrocketed. Every time I started to get close to the cost of the cheapest new car, the cost of it would go up. My memory for numbers is poor, but I believe by the time I had enough for that VW, the cheapest car in America cost $3,600. Maybe it was $3,300. I believe it was a Toyota. Anyway the target kept moving, and I eventually gave up. I ended up not getting my first new car until I was about 30. I believe it cost about $7,500.
Lois Elling: "My parents were both pretty frugal, having lived through the depression. My dad had a good-paying job that he loved, but always bought used cars and worked on them himself. Until he retired, that is, when he took my mom to a Lincoln dealership. Being six feet tall, he wanted something with plenty of headroom. I heard later that she asked him while they were there, 'Herman, do you realize where you are?' Although he was thrifty, he also knew when it was important to spend money for quality—or comfort. He did come home with that Lincoln."
Lawrence Plummer: "But, but, a $20K car in 1976 is $108,574.10 in 2023 dollars!!!"
JH: "I've mentioned before that I've owned a lot of cars in 60 years of driving, so below is the list of all I can remember and the prices on the ones I bought new.
"But first, comments on some car prices. Back in the mid-1960s my brother ran a dealership in Nashville that sold Porsche, Alfa Romeo, Mercedes Benz, Ferrari and a few other European brands you never heard of like Borgward. I do remember some of the prices.
"Around 1963–4, an Alfa Giulietta Spider cost ~$3,000 and a Porsche 356 closer to $4,000. The first Porsche 911's were around $6,000 but the 912 came soon after at under $5,000.
"I think the Mercedes sedans were priced at ~$4,000–6,000 except for the 600 series. One year my brother sold two 600s to executives at Monument Records, both over $20,000. Coupes and convertibles of the 300 series were in the $12–15,000 range.
Ferraris were around $14,000 and my brother sold several each year, one to the son of an oilman who went to Vanderbilt U down the street—his father gave him one each year when he made Dean's List!
"In those days, auto transporter companies were reluctant to carry cars over about $10,000 so we often got a trip to pick them up at the docks and drive them back to Nashville. I drove a $14,000 Mercedes coupe from Mobile back to Nashville once—nearly got thrown in jail in Tupelo, Mississippi, but fortunately had enough cash to pay off the local cops and Justice of the Peace late on Saturday night.
"JH Cars (in order of acquisition), starting when I got my drivers license in 1962. Prices are approximate—memory fades...."
'55 Dodge two-door HT (family)
'57 Ford two-door Coupe (family)
'57 Mercedes Benz 219 long wheelbase/limo
'59/'61 Fiat 1200 (counts twice—became a '61 after being totaled and rebuilt in a donor body)
'62 Alfa Spider (co-owned with brother, raced, sold in ’68, recovered in '93, raced for nine more years)
'67 Alfa TI Sedan traded for first Duetto in 1971 ($2,421—dealer cost—college graduation present from Father)
'68 Plymouth Sedan (company car)
'67 Alfa Duetto
'69 Alfa GT Jr 1,300
'69 VW Type 3 SW
My wife bought a new VW Super Beetle in 1970 for $1,700.
'71 Chevy Monte Carlo (company car) $4,000
'68 VW Bus
'71 Alfa GTV (used, < one year old) $3,000 (sold for $4,500 three months later)
'68 Rover TC2000
'73 Mazda RX-2 (first rotary car in New England) $3,100
'60 GSM Delta w/Holbay Ford 105E
'67 Alfa Duetto (different one)
'75 Ford Granada $4,000
'79 Dodge Omni. $3,000
'84 Pontiac 6000 SW (company car) (leased)
'63 Alfa Giulia Spider $1300, sold several years later for $20,000
'86 Plymouth Horizon (totaled by 240Z) $4,000
'89 Chevy Beretta
'74 Alfa Giulia Sprint GTV
'59 Alfa Giulietta Sprint (racecar) (totalled at Mosport, '93)
'59 Alfa Giulietta Sprint (parts car)
'89 Mercury Sable Sedan (company car) $7,000
'84 Corvette
'70 Zink C4 FV (racecar)
'91 Jeep Cherokee (company car) Tow car too $9,000
'62 Alfa Spider (second time around—see above, sold in 2002 and is still being raced in SCCA and vintage—you would not believe what racing it for 12 years cost!)
'94 Jeep Grand Cherokee (company car, tow car too) $18,000 (leased)
'59 Alfa Spider (racecar)
'73 Alfa GTV
'91 Mazda Miata (used—three years old) $10,000
'57 Alfa Spider w/Pininfarina Hardtop (sreet/racecar) $8,000, sold five years later for $22,000
'97 Jeep Cherokee (company car) Tow car too. $16,000 (leased)
'99 Jeep Grand Cherokee (company car) Tow car too $24,000 (leased)
'59 Alfa Giulietta Sprint (racecar, sold unfinished)
'01 BMW 330i $42,000
'02 MINI $23,000
'99 BMW 323Ci
'04 Ford F150 $20,000
'04 BMW M3 SMG $54,000 (sold for $47,000 after 18 months and thousands of track miles)
'05 Nissan Maxima $30,000
'94 Mazda Miata
'06 MINI John Cooper Works $35,000 (broke even when sold 18 months later)
'08 Nissan Frontier $20,000
'09 Ford F150 $24,000
'12 BMW 128i $38,000 (leased)
'11 VW Jetta Sportwagen TDI Diesel $24,000
'16 Mini Cooper $25,000 (leased)
'16 Honda CR-V $27,000
'21 Honda CR-V $31,000"
Mike replies: Impressive. My life-list is as follows:
- Ancient 1960s rusted-out Toyota, late '70s. A Dartmouth assistant professor flat-out cheated me when he sold it to me. He told me numerous flagrant lies, for instance, that the radio worked when it was simply a faceplate with nothing behind it. I had various misadventures in it (some of which were actual crimes, I'm sorry to admit—I drove it without registration or valid plates). Abandoned in a fraternity parking lot where a tree fell on it.
- New Mazda 323, maybe an '87? Can't remember the year. My mother paid for half of it as a graduation present from art school. Kept it for nine years.
- Dodge Neon "Sport," bought because David E. Davis named it "Car of the Year" at one of his magazines. Worst car I ever bought. It ran well and was nice and tight when new, but after three years it had lost performance badly and was as loose, rattley, and rickety as a 15-year-old car. There's a good reason that you almost never see old Neons on the road today.
- Ford Escort ZX2. Bought new. Kept it for nine years. Mine was a great little car, although other owners did not have good experiences (I always asked other owners when the opportunity presented itself.
- Used Mercedes C-Class. Drove it for two years and it lost $11k in value! The maintenance expenses cured me of any further GAS (CAS?) for German cars.
- Used 2001 Mazda Miata, my only-ever second car. Kept it for three years while I had the Mercedes and the RAV4 and sold it to a TOP reader to help finance my move to the Finger Lakes—which was the exact wrong move, because it would have been perfect for the roads around here, and in fact you see a lot of them here in the summer.
- 2012 Toyota RAV4, bought new on model closeout on 0% financing. Most expensive car I ever bought at $26k. I lost a lot of money on this one too, because I set myself up for five years of ownership and bailed on it early because I missed having a stick shift. It's still the only SUV I've ever driven—not owned, driven—apart from a couple of dealer test drives.
- 2014 Acura ILX 2.4, which has the same drivetrain as the 2014 Honda Civic Si. Nine years later it's still going strong at 114,000 miles, and I intend to try to keep it at least until 200k miles. It's the only car I've liked better when it's older than I liked it when it was new.
So that's eight cars in 50 years of driving. The Mercedes, Miata, and RAV4 were purchased in an orgy of self-indulgence during the years that TOP was making a lot of money. After years of pent-up desire I went wild!
Dave Levingston: "Now at least you can say that you've written your AutoBiography. (Sorry...someone had to say it.)"