>The car was valued at an amount equivalent to nearly $43,000 today.
>The automobile was near-totaled, a jumble of hubcaps, spark plugs and gaskets that racked up a repair bill adding up to $2,200 in today’s value
Weird, no?
Labor was a lot cheaper and old cars were a lot easier to fix. Furthermore, all of this was made cheaper by lower standards of safety in the day. You could just bend an axle or a rim back into shape, dump oil on the ground, paint without a respirator, etc, etc, and nobody would screech about it on Reddit. (Cost of compliance is a huge driver of overhead in the automotive business in case anyone was unaware)
Near-totaled suggests the costs to repair are near the value of the car. I can’t see how $2200 is near $43000 in any reasonable definition.
The car was probably 4300. That lines up better with car prices of the time. $43,000 just doesn't check out.