A car sitting in a garage makes 0 horsepower.

I had forgotten there was a time when an M car could go this many miles.

Perception has taken over reality. People’s perception of what they’re buying is more important than what they are actually buying.

Eh, I think it’s a cross between a humble-brag and a “smart decision”. Since my wife and I got together we:

Meh - I’m not super wealthy but I see the value in new cars vs. nearly new cars as long as the new car is bought correctly - deeply discounted. You get what YOU want, unhooned, with nobody else’s farts in the seats. The first few years of a cars life are the best years - they should cost more. Nearly new used cars…

I would wager that in spite of all of this, he has spent less than most people have on their last single vehicle purchase.

Great article, Patrick. My take is we have collectively lost our damn minds. The collective keeping up with the Joneses paradigm never seems to go away, especially when it comes to vehicles.

That’s what I said, if you take a 7 year loan at 3.7% vs a 3 year at 4.7% and pay the 7 year off in 3 years you save some money on the interest. I’m just saying that is the only reason I’d consider it, there really isn’t any other reason to take a 7 year loan on any car.

+1 for honesty.

That pretty much doesn’t happen, and given interest rates are annual, you still pay more.

Lots of good cars out there under 25k. Even really nice ones these days (cough Mazda3, Mazda6, Civic, Elantra, etc...). People want SUVs, and they think they want big SUVs, and you can charge for those... so people do dumb things.

You can’t, even in your cabin in the woods, you’ll still find those “many blood sucking creatures”.

I dunno, I think he probably blindly stumbled into most of those, too. His broken clock is only right once per day.

Trump knows plenty of things:

The sad thing is that he thinks he knows far more too.  It’s a really bad combination to have in a leader.

Deadspin Headline:

Came for this, not disappointed, although my version is a little shorter:

I always question when specific values are thrown out in hypothetical situations. He’s looking at the entirety of American automobile production and can say that every vehicle will be $3,500 less. Not a percentage of current cost, not “up to a few thousand dollars”, but $3,500.

FIFY

I grew up in CA. There were several days in my school days where we were not allowed to go outside due to the smog. I remember getting home from school (I walked) and my lungs felt like they were on fire.