We all know prices have changed. Everything has changed. Trying to compare your first model T purchase to a new F150 is pointless. No one bitches they made $1.25/hr rounding up the animals for Noah's Ark and now make $60/hr.

People complain because their salaries have remained stagnant while prices on everything have gone up substantially, especially vehicle prices.

When you see an old magazine ad for a Colt Python selling for $125 in 1968, think to yourself how long it took to make $125 in 1968.

Want to have a little fun with comparing prices? Go to usinflationcalculator.com. You'll get a kick out of it.

I have a friend of mine that is always telling me how much a certain gun cost in 1978 , or how much he paid for .45 ammo in 1983 . I DON"T CARE !

I recently saw one of those "Gas prices the year you started driving" articles. Doing the comparison for my own experience over 4 decades ago, it's dang near identical when adjusted for inflation.

While I agree with your overall point, the changes have been so concentrated over the past 5-10 years I've found myself having to constantly recalibrate my mindset when it comes to money more than I've ever recalled having to do in the past.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
People complain because their salaries have remained stagnant while prices on everything have gone up substantially, especially vehicle prices.

Yeah and the pussies doing the bitching would pitch a fit if they had to crank their windows up and down by hand. Cars today are so expensive because there are so overloaded with useless gewgaws that are completely unnecessary. I can remember when a Ford F100 road like a brick with the bed empty and it was 3 gears on the floor without any radio, AC, and a heater fan with just two speeds, slow and slower. On the plus side you could beat that heck out of it and that old straight six would just keep on ticking along like a Swiss watch. They also tipped the scales at about 3000 lbs. if my memory is correct.

I have the original sticker from my 68 Mustang. It was roughly $3,000. That'd be $27,000 today. I dare you to find a new Mustang for 27K.

... or how much lifetime alimony at $27.59 a month, compared to $1750.00 today.

Just. Don't...

The first time the US mint made a three cent coin, it was made of silver.

A few hundred years ago, a sewing needle was spectacularly expensive.

During the Aztec empire, you could trade a 1/4 pound of chocolate and get a prisoner.

Guess what? I can't get a lot silver for 3¢, needles are cheap, and owning other people is severely frowned upon.

They can no longer make garments in the garment district.

Times change.

Difficult not to think about the changes, especially as fast as everything is changing in recent years. We retired 8 years ago, much better financial condition than most folks, debt-free with solid investment accounts cranking out dividends and interest that we really didn't need.

8 years later we really need that income stream, and I can foresee a future time when we have to start spending down the principal (which forever diminishes the yield). Now dealing with RMD (required minimum distributions) on the qualified investment accounts, which for the time being I am converting to certificates of deposit earning 5%-plus as a hedge against future inflation.

Wife's 8-year old car only has about 60K on it, and my 6-year old truck is under 70K, so we are good to go for several more years without those expenses. Hoping to handle those with cash instead of those nagging monthly payments eroding the budget.

The real bummer is when you start thinking about cheaper beer brands. Tedious, tiresome.

quote:

Originally posted by LoboGunLeather:
The real bummer is when you start thinking about cheaper beer brands.

There's always Bud Light. 30 pack for under $20.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by LoboGunLeather:
The real bummer is when you start thinking about cheaper beer brands.

There's always Bud Light. 30 pack for under $20.

Tranny fluid? Are they still making that?

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
I have the original sticker from my 68 Mustang. It was roughly $3,000. That'd be $27,000 today. I dare you to find a new Mustang for 27K.

Yes but the only similarities between a 68 Mustang and a new one are the name and logo. Heck just the modern 4 wheel disk brakes are worth a couple thousand more IMO.

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
I have the original sticker from my 68 Mustang. It was roughly $3,000. That'd be $27,000 today. I dare you to find a new Mustang for 27K.

Yes but the only similarities between a 68 Mustang and a new one are the name and logo. Heck just the modern 4 wheel disk brakes are worth a couple thousand more IMO.

Apple and oranges though, I think. Today's cars are the technological equivalent of the 1968 cars in 1968.

Today's XM radio is the 1968 AM radio. Today's back up camera is the 1968 neck. Today's 10-ply tires are the 1968 2-ply tires. Etc....

I agree. Really modern cars, trucks, and motorcycles work so much better than old stuff it's hardl even to compare them.

quote:

Originally posted by Scooter123:

Yeah and the pussies doing the bitching would pitch a fit if they had to crank their windows up and down by hand. Cars today are so expensive because there are so overloaded with useless gewgaws that are completely unnecessary. I can remember when a Ford F100 road like a brick with the bed empty and it was 3 gears on the floor without any radio, AC, and a heater fan with just two speeds, slow and slower. On the plus side you could beat that heck out of it and that old straight six would just keep on ticking along like a Swiss watch. They also tipped the scales at about 3000 lbs. if my memory is correct.

I have a number of vehicles and they all run like a Swiss watch. It’s just more complicated than that.

Vehicles are expensive today due to many factors. One being that most of the idiot vehicle buyers in America buy for image and status. They do not buy for function and they certainly don’t treat a vehicle like a tool, and choose the right tool for the job. Remember all the coupes and smaller cars that used to be available? They are mostly gone. Ford quit making cars for the most part, sans the Mustang, due to CAFE standards, IE MPG. Trucks or anything labeled a truck on paper, like a SUV, doesn’t have the MPG requirements of a passenger car. So companies like Ford have pivoted that way. Easier to achieve MPG requirements on a truck or SUV than a car. Cars like the Honda Fit, are gone. That was an inexpensive daily driver. Hatchback that could seat 5. Reliable, great fuel economy, and reliable. A real car. It wasn’t built to be a luxury thing with a bunch of bullshit options. It was built to be a daily driver without all the bs fluff. Now it’s the dodo and they don’t make it. And most companies don’t offer a car like this any longer. The American buyer wants more doo dads, bigger, image/status. The Honda Fit is a great example because there wasn’t any image/status with it.

Then there is everyone out there that wanted bigger, larger vehicles. The size of a full size truck has grown so much that most of them can’t even fit in a traditional garage anymore. If it does, you are using some fancy camera or parking sensor in it to park it inches from a wall just to get it into the garage. This extends to all vehicles too though. Sedans, bigger, to the point now that the most common thing bought is a CUV. They build these things to look off-roady but 90+% will never see even a dirt or graveled road. They don’t have off-road suspension or anything else, so they are image vehicles for the most part. Designed to give the buyer some image of off-road or something. It’s hilarious actually. And they keep making these bigger and bigger because I guess everyone needs to be able to pack a bunch of shit in them? I’m surprised they don’t offer them with travel trailer OEM/factory combinations. That way people could haul around even more mindless shit. I’ve heard people go on about how much easier they are to get into, etc, and always wondered what was the year that getting into or out of a family wagon, or passenger car became so difficult? So many of these vehicles have almost no hatch/trunk space at all. A fake lift kit, small trunk and why? Image/status, that’s why. People out there think these things are cool looking or something. Baffles the mind. A wagon has a lower COG, handles better, will have more storage space in the hatch, seats the same amount of occupants but wagons are rare now. Why? Image. Like the Minivan people are so obsessed with image that for some reason a wagon is not in vogue.

Bigger vehicles equal an increase in cost. Then you have the smartphone addicts all across the nation. A bigger plague than Fentanyl or Opioids. Bigger problem than obesity. Everyone is on them all the time, hooked on them like drugs. They cannot put the thing down to drive so vehicle mfr’s have just added more ADAS to most every vehicle sold.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...er-assistance_system
So you’ve got thousands and thousands of dollars added to all makes and models for this bullshit. And there is no way to get the new vehicle you want without some form of this madness. How about put the got damn phone away and drive and you don’t need Hal9000 onboard making decisions for you, driving for you. So the phone/social media addicts are to blame for this. Distracted driving is such a plague on society right now that even with all these computer copilots in these vehicles, accidents are still up. They are not decreasing even with all this added technology. ADAS is so complex now some systems use radar, others cameras, some use both. And whether you want this crap or not, you have to pay for it because of all the idiots. You don’t even get a choice. I could probably do some research and figure out a flat, middle ground figure, for how many thousands of dollars this has added to every vehicle purchase price. It’s significant.

Then the largest portion of the cost increases is just straight marketing. Karen in the suburbs, trophy wife, or not, can’t be caught dead in a minivan, to drive her brats around. I mean you got 2, 3, or more kids, a Minivan is the perfect tool for that job but she has an image/status issue. So that means instead it will be a Suburban, Escalade, Expedition, etc. And people are so addicted to fake life, what I call it, image/status obsessed, that they have to compete with other idiots in the suburbs, one upping each other. The vehicle mfr’s know this, know how addicted their customers are to having that status, and getting a new vehicle every 2-3 years to compete with other Karens, etc, that they just keep making them bigger, with more bells and whistles to justify the cost increases. Gimmick this and that, which are marketing tools for their advertisers. Oooh look it has heated seats, cooled seats, and massagers built in. I mean back in the day you went to this thing called the mall, and put five bucks into that same chair and sat there for 10-15 minutes getting a massage. Now this is an option in luxury trucks and SUV’s. It’s laughable. Most of these modcons are just silly that they add. And mfr’s are doubling down now with them trying to turn all these options into subscription based services. They are really pushing that narrative and business model now. That’s where the entire vehicle market is going. Subscription based like some bullshit app.

Long gone are the days of that single cab truck with the bench seat. That was a practical and functional vehicle to get work done, to get you to work, etc. That doesn’t sell anymore. Now it has to have a large rear cab and x, y, and z options, etc. I bought a truck in 2019 and drove almost every single pick up on the market that year before I made my decision. The prices on many of them were just obscene. Today they are worse. I’ve seen 33% increases in prices on sportbikes, cars, trucks, watercraft, and this is just in the last 6 or so years. It’s crazy. But the analogy I like, is coffee. When I get up in the morning it doesn’t even take me 60 seconds, 1 flat minute, to put a filter in my coffee maker, measure the coffee to pour into the filter, add water, and hit start. I do that and go take a shower. A lot of people lack this simple ability and instead drive their image vehicle up to Starbucks every morning and overpay, buying a $6 or 7 cup up coffee idling for 15 minutes and wasting fuel. They could have done that in 60 seconds at home. Add another minute for pouring it into some sort of thermos, you know with your hand, and mixing in half and half or whatever you use. Nope, instead they choose the entitled overpaying way to get “served”. That same analogy extends to vehicles. I feel lucky that when I needed a truck I made the right decision. It doesn’t have ADAS and didn’t cost me a fortune. I’d have to spend at least 10k more now to get one and it would have bs I don’t want.

LOL you pretty much summed it up, Prefontaine.

There IS a market for small trucks here it's just our CAFE standards will penalize/fine them so the starting size is a crew cab Maverick.

I also have noticed somewhat of a trend down from 3/4 to 1/2, and 1/2 down to midsize trucks now that manufacturers are offering nice midsize trucks.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:

After noticing a few of your somewhat detailed responses in the past month I have to ask; are you a bot or do you suddenly find yourself in a unique position of nimble fingers and a metricshitload of free time?

I mean, the content is good, but the effort is high!

P.S. No matter what thank you for punctuation and paragraphs!