I am not sure you can buy a year old focus for $14K,but I was also considering the fact that nobody buys anything anymore. It is all a numbers game where they give you thousands for your scrap metal and convince you that you got a deal with your new payment plan. If everybody driving a Tesla or Escalade had to buy them the market would suffer and the situation would get worse. Meanwhile the kid trying to flip burgers and go to tech school has to deal with crazy high insurance(because somebody has to pay for the totaled escalades that still had a 63K debt owed) and will never know that he could have bought a new car had he been born in the 50's. How is it not profitable to sell 1,000,000 mustangs at $1000 profit instead of 100,000 jaguars at a $10,000 profit? My point is that we will never know because that car does not exist as an American car.
Because those are disposable transportation from A to B turd cars that are uncomfortable to ride in or drive if you're taller than 5'5" tall! Even the 4 doors, they have the front seat in the middle of the back door so even with 4 doors they're not any good to transport adults in the back seat! They don't have much trunk space either for luggage to take a trip for more than 2 people for a weekend. The list goes on and on why they don't sell those POS cars. Back in the day the entry level cars didn't need 4 doors to fit 6 adults a bit cramped and 4 adults comfortably and had enough room in the trunk to fit enough luggage for 4 adults to go away for 2 weeks! But hey, if cars were as good as they use to be, they wouldn't be able to sell all those trucks and SUVs they sell! They sure the flock didn't sell as many trucks back then as they do now and that's because the entry level cars today are turd mobiles designed so they sell more trucks and SUVs that have higher profit margins. They are ok as a second car but if someone can only afford to own 1 car and needs that car to be able to multitask, well then todays entry level cars are not for them. Not the workers fault, it is managements fault for having them designed so people don't want them and so they buy a truck or SUV that is more profitable because that is the only choice. And the people that can't afford to buy new will buy a used truck or SUV that fits there needs. I think they only build those turd cars that no one wants is to appease the café standards the gov. forced on the car companies anyway.
I agree with the above. When cars had room for four adults or two adults and four children (before every child was required to be strapped into an NHRA certified seat), they also could pull a small camper or boat and were driveway serviceable. Now cars are disposable transportation pods, and four door trucks and SUVS are the new ‘family cars’. If I’m dropping five digits for a vehicle, I expect to keep it ten years at the minimum and expect its depreciation curve to level out at some point, such that I’m not too bad upside down if I have to put an engine or transmission in it. Cars are too much like cell phones-sooner or later it’ll be too much trouble to keep, just dump it and get the new one. Not gonna do it with a vehicle. Patrick
In 1956 Ford ran a promotion where you could purchase a 1956 base Ford for $1,956. That was about as cheap as American cars got. The present value of $1,956 in 1956 is $17,992.57. You can still purchase a base car for that amount, and it's less likely to kill you in an accident. Today's cars are more reliable, require far less service, get better fuel economy and pollute less. I absolutely loved my '55 Buick Century ragtop and I wish that I had it back, but my 2005 Dodge Magnums beat the old Buick just about every way from Sunday, and get better fuel economy doing it.
Don't think that car would equal the 1956 dollars to buy back in '05, in '05 dollars the base model was $22,000, that is $4,000 more for '05 dollars which the '56 to '05 comparison probably would make the '56 even less than the corrected for todays pricing for an even wider spread of difference; https://www.autoblog.com/buy/2005-Dodge-Magnum/specs/ A turd car you can buy for $18K nowadays may be "safer" and get better mileage, but only has 10% of the versatility or utility of even that 1956 car. If you want to compare miles per dollar from back then to now, that would be a fairer comparison than mpg from back then to now.
The space utilization and ergonomics of a newer car are vastly superior to a 1956 car (and even more so to a 1976 car). Let's be honest: the cars we love kinda suck. My old 4-4-2's interior room (similar to your GSs) would probably be equivalent to a compact car today. It's no secret that there's more than Buicks that unites the fine folks on this forum – it's also personality, and that personality has Luddite elements. It's good and all to bitch and moan about how things are changing, for better or worse, but sometimes it would help to acknowledge that the perception of negatives may actually be positives.
As an owner of a 2012 Cruze LTZ RS that i purchased new, it has been a great car. excellent fuel economy in which i have averaged up to 42 MPG on the highway and have always averaged a combined average of 30 mpg. power from a 1.4 liter turbo is more than adequate combined with a 6 speed auto. plenty of room up front and I am 6'1". People always complain about the back seat but most drivers in any vehicle are driving alone 90% of the time anyways. People just do not want cars and a good number of them that come into my friends local Chevrolet dealership are undder the belief that they need a truck or SUV untill they see the price tag.
I have no use for a car except for pleasure, if it won't run 12.0's I don't want it. That said I have horses and have a bumper pull horse trailer. I have a bumper pull car hauler and travel trailer also and cars made in the last 40 years won't pull them. There are just too many sweet crew cab diesels out there for under $20K. I also bought a perfect 2005 Lincoln Navigator with 76K miles for $6K that will drag them around faily well and I can put bags of feed and hay bails in it too. People today are looking at larger SUV's along with minivans that have gotton much larger because they are just so much more versatile. Fuel mileage is just not that big a concern anymore. We all have our reasons as to why we drive what we drive but fuel mileage alone does not justify it for me. I would rather get 12-13 city in my 70 Wildcat or 67 Caddy and fix em than 30+ in some econobox; but that's me. My "old" cars have never left me stranded but these new ones have! Mikey
I'm well that the Magnum RT is not a base-model car; neither was my '55 Century. My point (which I guess that I didn't make very well) is that today's cars - even thirteen-year-old ones, are far better then cars of the mid-fifties, or '40s,or '30s ... BTW: I couldn't agree with Diego more. We had a bought-new '72 Olds Cutlass. I was 5' 10" then (I have shrunk about 3/4" since) and I always drove it with the seat all the way back, and wished that the seat had one more notch of travel. My 2-wheel drive '82 Buchev pickup has the turning radius of the Queen Mary, a 2017 Ford F-250 4-wheel drive that I recently drove had a solid ten-foot-less radius.
