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Comment by mrguyorama | Hacker News Reader

I would love to have a beautiful brand new corvette. Do I need 400 horsepower? Hell no, I wouldn't even have a use for it, but that's never been the issue.

I can afford it, in fact, I can put a 50% downpayment on a new corvette. I can afford the monthly payment. But why would I? Cars pretty much always depreciate. I certainly wouldn't be able to keep it up as a collectors quality example, even if it ever became one. And in 99% of my use cases, a used Corolla or Accord will provide a similar experience.

Meanwhile, in 1966, Ford Mustangs apparently cost around $20k adjusted for inflation[0]. That's mind boggling. If a sports car were that cheap, I'd own it. Even the Toyota 86 and Mazda Miata are around $30k new now.

[0]:https://www.cjponyparts.com/resources/mustang-prices-through...

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Depreciation and the unbelievable acceleration of modern basic sedans has destroyed the mid tier performance car. The outrageous horsepower era we're in now has produced some weird side effects.

All the money has shifted to classics where you can own a car for a decade and have it be worth the same or more. Maintenance will be somewhat expensive, but after you factor in depreciation it's a far cheaper way to own an interesting car. Some of the blue chip classics like air cooled 911s are basically liquid assets since you can turn them into cash with as little as a few hours notice.

I agree with all this.

I also think the every-model-year-update to appearance (for appearance sake)[1] enhances the acceleration of depreciation for any desirable car.

[1] (trucks are probably the worst at this - as it's obvious no other part of the body changes)

Look into a used Corvette. Most of the time they're not daily drivers, have low miles, and have been garaged. They're fantastic used cars, and the performance mod market is so large.

I don't have a problem with this. I've been doing the 1-2 year old barely-used used car thing now for a while with no regerts and no major issues.

I can imagine a babied performance car is just as much as a slam dunk. Then that extra $20k can go towards something else.

> And in 99% of my use cases, a used Corolla or Accord will provide a similar experience.

Is it just me, or does a foreign car not seem to impress a date the way a Corvette does?

I'm a 20 something, managing to graduate college with no debt will be more impressive

Ah, well, I was assuming that one already had the degree debt free.

There are brand new Ford Mustangs for 19.5K (2018, manual, v4 Turbo). The v8 can be found at 28K. I'd imagine that it may go a bit lower with negociations.

https://shop.ford.com/showroom?linktype=build#/ shows me that Mustangs start at $26k. Admittedly lower than I thought.

This is the MSRP, you can usually find way lower than that. I start with Auto trader, with a search radius of 200 miles + filters.

https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/New+Cars/cars+under...

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