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Originally Posted by thill
The fact is the average age of a new car buyer is getting older and older as the cost of new cars continues to increase and college educations in our country and healthcare costs skyrocket. The average price of a new car is $32k now and very few average income families can afford it. .
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Well, in my experience this has always been the case (the average income family could not afford the average new car) regardless of when you look at it in history. But, in the end you are correct the "average" price of a car has risen over time faster than the "average" salary. I would argue though that this is partially due to the willingness of people to finance cars over the years, resulting in the increase of higher end cars sold, amongst other contributing factors.
The ratio was pretty steady until the 1980's but then skyrocketed. Seems to me this correlates to when the larger vehicle market (SUVs, "fancy" nonwork trucks, etc) took off and folks were able to lease and finance cars for longer terms. You could argue that it is a chicken/egg thing, but the bottom line is if someone wasn't buying $50,000 pickup trucks and $40,000 cargo conversion vans, the manufacturers would not be building them.
Here's a little comparison of average income to average car price over the years.
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