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detmatt

Old Man with a Hat
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never fail to entertain. One of the regulars over on FEBO posted these.
From '76.

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'69 Imp for 100 bucks!

i think i told you the story about my E body i bought in '92. in my mind at the time was these late 70's prices for big block mopars .. when i didnt have any money as a college student :-)

in todays money $100 is probably $400-$500... no way that touches a '69 Imp today as we know.
 
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In terms of purchasing power, cars have doubled as compared to other consumerables that are aprox level and food which is much less.

this is a great chart ... and sobering. topics for prohibited threads :-).

i could earn a PhD untangling this one simple but insightful chart. thx!
 
cost-of-living-chart.jpg

In terms of purchasing power, cars have doubled as compared to other consumerables that are aprox level and food which is much less.

I won't claim this completely covers the price discrepancy, but newer cars have a lot of stuff the older ones didn't. Lots of technology to pay for in air bags, abs and engine management just for a start... and the manufacturer's don't develop it all, they buy lots of it.

Light-Duty Automotive Technology, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 - 2014 | OTAQ | US EPA

link in case you have trouble sleeping...
 
But don't forget our "Lovely" gubment shoved a lot of that crap down our throats. Thanks to lobbyists. Look at all the recalls because of BS airbags and emission crap. Who do you think is paying for those recalls? The consumer. The manufacturer will just re-coup it by driving up the cost of the next year's models. How can a company afford to do those recalls and still remain in business. I know how to stop a car that doesn't have government mandated abs, I know that I should wear a seat belt. Get these paid off clowns in the gov't out of our lives and we'd be paying a lot less for cars and everything else.
 
The point, gentleman, that the car today is double all things equal.
A $40,000.00 new car is $20k for the car itself and $20k is government tax you have to pay if you buy a new car. That tax is in the form of all the government mandated stuff.
To have the privilege to buy a new car, you have to pay a $20k fee to buy a $20k car.
 
The point, gentleman, that the car today is double all things equal.
A $40,000.00 new car is $20k for the car itself and $20k is government tax you have to pay if you buy a new car. That tax is in the form of all the government mandated stuff.
To have the privilege to buy a new car, you have to pay a $20k fee to buy a $20k car.

All the more reason I won't be buying new... ever. My purchasing guideline is simple, after researching the model, engine and parts availability, I look to pay 10% of the sticker for a 10 year old, 100k mile version of whatever... it's not a perfect rule, but if you don't get hung up on the numbers and look at the condition of everything... it has worked well. I am usually worth another 100k or so use at a rate far cheaper than the original purchaser.

BTW, the manufacturer charges you up front for the expected failures... excellent bean counters... If they payout too much later on, they simply cut costs to somewhere to offset (like layoffs and such)... the hardest part on consumers is when they stop making parts available... pretty much as soon as their warranty obligations are fulfilled.
 
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The point, gentleman, that the car today is double all things equal.
A $40,000.00 new car is $20k for the car itself and $20k is government tax you have to pay if you buy a new car. That tax is in the form of all the government mandated stuff.
To have the privilege to buy a new car, you have to pay a $20k fee to buy a $20k car.

True. I could go on and on about taxes. Wages have gone up though. I made $3 an hour in 1982. The local Home Depot is hiring at $16 starting, Costco at $20, and even the local gas station at $10.25. I know, cost of living has increased... Turns out that getting by and ahead has always been tough. Don't complain, If you think inflation is bad, deflation is it's butt ugly cousin.

One thought that has gone through my mind was the comment you made about 2 year old new Chryslers still on the lot. Our local Ford dealer has new 2015 trucks. Oddly at not much of a discount.
 
Even after you factor in that a 1975 car has way less "content" (emissions/safety, less things standard vs. now, etc), a lotta other things are going on with technology and manufacturing process and other innovations since then that put downward pressure on cost and then usually the price (deflation) follows.

Mix all that stuff together, i agree that the mandated and safety content would mean the price of car (driven by the cost of that stuff) today would be higher than the rate of inflation over those 40 years would suggest .. but by 2X the rate of inflation?

Coming from the car industry in a past life (where i knew the cost of the mandated stuff and how we priced it), that's a head-scratcher for me. So this bag of snakes needs to be laid out straight ... in boring, statistical economic terms I can understand :).

looks like I personally have a homework assignment outside this neat thread detmatt started ..maybe somebody slogged through this topic and something is posted out there somewhere on the Internet.
 
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What fun is there in doing that? :p

:-)

old habits man ... its one thing to recognize an anomaly..its another thing to explain it, and another thing to fix it. i made a living doing all three while using a crapload of dollars of the shareholders' money :-)

"economics" on relies on capturing /predicting behavior of people. "statistics" is a tool that illuminates aggregate behaviors in ways that can used to make decisions. that can be tedious, "boring" work to slog thru those data.

as somebody said earlier...the only "fix" for me now is if i didnt get discounts i'd NEVER buy a brand new car. bad investments by any objective viewpoint. your chart couldnt be more clear on how bad its become. a 1-3 year old car is fine by me :-)

anyway something is going on with car prices over time thats "odd" - i gotta figure it out for no other reason than "i dont get it" and it bugs me.

thats motivation enough :-)
 
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:)

old habits man ... its one thing to recognize an anomaly..its another thing to explain it, and another thing to fix it. i made a living doing all three while using a crapload of dollars of the shareholders' money :)

"economics" on relies on capturing /predicting behavior of people. "statistics" is a tool that illuminates aggregate behaviors in ways that can used to make decisions. that can be tedious, "boring" work to slog thru those data.

as somebody said earlier...the only "fix" for me now is if i didnt get discounts i'd NEVER buy a brand new car. bad investments by any objective viewpoint. your chart couldnt be more clear on how bad its become. a 1-3 year old car is fine by me :)

anyway something is going on with car prices over time thats "odd" - i gotta figure it out for no other reason than "i dont get it" and it bugs me.

thats motivation enough :)
Economically, I very recently made the absolute worst investment of my life. I bought a new luxury car. I had to spend way above my head.
Statistically, considering my current situation, necessities, and needs, It was the best investment to lose the least money on.
Sometimes taking it up the yinyang is the cheapest option in that all other alternatives to spend less money has non-monetary consequences that outweigh the money.
 
Economically, I very recently made the absolute worst investment of my life. I bought a new luxury car. I had to spend way above my head.
Statistically, considering my current situation, necessities, and needs, It was the best investment to lose the least money on.
Sometimes taking it up the yinyang is the cheapest option in that all other alternatives to spend less money has non-monetary consequences that outweigh the money.

yes, sometimes we all must spend some time "walking funny" after a given set of circumstances has "had their way" with us. :-)

stuff happens, we make the best decision with info at the time, and we deal with it. everything can't be a "win" .. and many times we know that going in and still do what we need/want to do.

I wasn't personalizing the new car thing btw (if you posted that somewhere, i didnt see it). New cars decline in value the SECOND we take ownership .. just the way it is when stuff is "used". Ain't changed in over 100 years.

I know ..preachin to the choir :-)
 
No wonder I have memories of Mom complaining about the cost of milk at the time ... she was also complaining about the cost of meat and even chicken had gone up, where chicken had been cheap before



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Damn at those prices we would all be Murray Park if we had the space. :)
 
It is no real surprise that so many became carnage in the demolition derbies. I grew up on a farm and the farm hands participated in them. It is sad to think back about it. They were always Chrysler with 440 and a 727, and would get them for a couple hundred bucks.

The one I really remember was an Imperial Crown 2 door it was 67 or 68 was in perfect shape with black leather interior, because I remember the rear seat sat around the farm for years.

I was 10 to 12 at the time so that Imperial was only round 10 year old. Makes me sick to think about it.
 
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