I think there's room in the market for a back to basics car company that takes out all this bs, goes back to crank windows and all that crap and sells new vehicles for an affordable cost with a good warranty.
It would probably crush today.
Edit: I got like 400 responses saying "slate" ok I get it you can stop
Factoring in inflation the average new car in 1960 cost roughly $23k in today's money.
Problem is, in the US safety features like airbags, anti-lock brakes and now backup cameras are required by law, so there's no selling a new car without those added costs of the center screen, computers and sensors required to run them.
Then you have things like crank windows that went away because volume production eventually made it cheaper to build cars with electric windows over cranks.
But as someone who's old and drove shitboxes when he was young and also has a car built in 1968 sitting in his garage, I can tell you those old cars are sloppy as fuck to drive, the seats are uncomfortable as hell and driving a car without things like power steering gets old.
Cars have an insane amount of electronics and safety features in them that old cars just didn't have.
But all those "features" come at a cost.
Nobody is talking about the other major culprit here - logistics, fuel, fees. Cars are not made in one place. A car will literally have components from 1000s of suppliers in it. All of those parts have to be made and shipped. They also are made by companies that want to make a profit too. And they are made with materials that are often shipped. All shipping uses fuel. Import shipping incurs fees.
Not really sure of your point here. The old car needed raw materials also. So what are you saying? Using domestic parts couldn't have been cheaper; otherwise those parts wouldn't have been offshored.
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u/burge4150 10h ago edited 4h ago
I think there's room in the market for a back to basics car company that takes out all this bs, goes back to crank windows and all that crap and sells new vehicles for an affordable cost with a good warranty.
It would probably crush today.
Edit: I got like 400 responses saying "slate" ok I get it you can stop