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Comment by snrplfth | Hacker News Reader

Again, my point is that the average home probably wouldn't have had a car, and if it did, it was far worse in terms of efficiency, safety and performance than all but the cheapest used cars today. This is the mis-perception I'm talking about - people imagine living in the 1930s as though they'd have been in the top 5% or 10% of the population in terms of income, but what we have to look at is the overall level. Just because some people could zip around in a sleek Plymouth Phaeton doesn't mean that everybody, or even many people, could.

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Safely maybe but early cars were comparatively fuel efficient. Look at the Model T, close to 20 mpg. That's not far off modern cars.

The curb weight of a Model T is 540 kg and its engine produces 20 horsepower, while a Honda Civic is 1150 kg, produces over 160 horsepower, and gets 35 mpg. It's moving twice as much car, with better efficiency, much faster, over a longer lifespan, with a much higher top speed. The performance of nearly all 30s cars would today be considered terrible in nearly every respect.

Then consider useful lifetime of the car. Ford used to recommend an engine rebuild around 50,000 miles.

At a fraction of the price though. The cost of a Model T at the end of production was like 1/6 that of a Civic. For the price it doesn't seem so bad.

With an extra 3 days of leisure every week I'd think I could handle not driving 80 mph on the highway. There are pictures of these 20s and 30s cars at the top of dirt roads in the rocky mountains so what ever power they had still let them go places.

Do I really need all the car that the civic is?

The inflation-adjusted price of a Model T in 1930 would be about $4000 2008 dollars, but the per capita income was only about $7000. (A big reason the Model Ts seems so cheap is because labour costs were comparatively low - but so were incomes.) Now, US per capita income is nearly $40 000, and a Honda Civic has an MSRP of about $20 000 new. So the average person is not really working more, but they're getting much more. Most modern goods really are vastly better.

And for an extra three days of leisure a week, you'd be giving up not just driving on the highway, but indeed a whole load of things.

Again - for most things, nobody is making you consume these additional goods and services above the 1930 average. But, as we can see, they're quite popular and people apparently prefer to work more and consume more rather than work less and consume less.

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