Posted on 01/11/2021 7:42:43 AM PST by dynachrome
During the infamous year 2020, with all its distortions and shifts, automakers delivered 14.46 million new vehicles in the US, retail and fleet combined, down 15.4% from 2019, the largest year-over-year percentage decline since 2008 (-18%). Topping off years of declines, 2020 took auto sales back to levels first seen in the 1970s.
Every recession has left a deep scar on auto sales. But over the past 20 years, it has taken many years to get back to the prior highs, only to then watch sales plunging again. The last high was in 2016, which had barely eked past the prior high of 2000, in this terribly cyclical business of long-term stagnation interrupted by deep plunges:
(Excerpt) Read more at wolfstreet.com ...
I was starting to think that too. I 2075 will we be like Cuba is today. We will all be riding around in those internal combustion engine cars built in between 2010-2025.
Neil Peart was pretty prophetic:
RED BARCHETTA(by RUSH)
Lyrics: Neil Peart
My uncle has a country place, that no-one knows about
He says it used to be a farm, before the Motor Law
Sundays I elude the ‘Eyes’, and hop the Turbine Freight
To far outside the Wire, where my white-haired uncle waits
Jump to the ground
As the Turbo slows to cross the borderline
Run like the wind
As excitement shivers up and down my spine
Down in his barn
My uncle preserved for me an old machine –
For fifty-odd years
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream
I strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta, from a better, vanished time
Fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar!
Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime…
Wind in my hair –
Shifting and drifting –
Mechanical music
Adrenalin surge –
Well-weathered leather
Hot metal and oil
The scented country air
Sunlight on chrome
The blur of the landscape
Every nerve aware
Suddenly ahead of me, across the mountainside
A gleaming alloy air-car shoots towards me, two lanes wide
I spin around with shrieking tires, to run the deadly race
Go screaming through the valley as another joins the chase
Drive like the wind
Straining the limits of machine and man
Laughing out loud
With fear and hope, I’ve got a desperate plan
At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded
At the riverside
Race back to the farm
To dream with my uncle
At the fireside
I have a 23 year old F150 with 190k miles on it. The rear end went out and the “new” one has 100k on it. They don’t make ‘em any more. C’est la vie.
Besides, there is this thing called “Uber” which allows you to party without putting your life at risk. Uber also comes in handy when you are in your seasoned years as well.
My 2004 F-150 XLT Xcab just sits in the garage.
128,000 mi.No need to sell.
Don’t know your age, but when I was a kid, we expected that & much more out of a car that was maintained.
I have a 1979 Buick—bought used in August 1981 with 55,000 miles on it. Now has 218,000 +++ Don’t drive every day-—but no problems. Can still get parts-—and repairs are not difficult.
Bought a 1976 1 ton dually Chevy truck in April of 1984 with 90,000 miles on it. IT now has over 348,000, and I still use it, towing horse trailer.
I have no intention of buying anything else.
NO ONE was earning the normal amount of $$$$$—so who is going to buy a ‘new car’???
To think this is happening when nearly every Automaker is offering 60 to 72 Month ZERO PERCENT Financing long with Employee Pricing.
We will be a one Car Household soon.
Yup, that’s what was going to say. Cars would either rust out or be blowing tons of blue smoke or both at 100k. Now they can go up to 300k and even beyond. Our 2001 F150 has 274k and still runs and drives good. I’m just starting to have to work on it. Needs new coil packs as three have gone bad. Needs shocks. Just replaced some suspension/steering parts and got an alignment.
I don’t think we’ve bought a vehicle with less than 100k in 15 years. We’re poor and I can fix them so we buy what some people would consider to be junkers.
I was out in my field planting a persimmon tree and a guy stopped and offered to buy my truck. The truck is a 1993 Ford Ranger with 257,000 miles on it. I told him no.
I am gonna replace the motor when it needs it, and the transmission, an the brakes, etc.
Yes, and here in NJ the insurance is so high for young drivers that a part-time job won’t let you pay for gas AND insurance at the same time...and that insurance stays high until they are 25.
At the same time, a beater looks good when the alternative is public transportation (for school or work, as opposed to the sporadic use of Uber etc.).
NJ tried hard to get people out of cars and onto mass transit, but failed miserably; too many escapees from NYC who are determined to drive their own vehicles. Now they raised the gas tax because we weren’t driving ENOUGH (with the ChiCom virus and people working remotely). They are missing their budgeted gas tax targets, so it went up $.09 per gallon to screw those still driving...
When they built exit 15X on the NJ Turnpike they intended for people to arrive on one train or bus and continue on another; they didn’t want it to be a park & ride. When nobody showed up and the vendors complained that it was a ghost town, they added a bunch of parking and voila - people showed up - in cars.
#39 I found a sales video of yours : )
“You killed my dog Mister. All he wanted was for you to be happy in this car and now he’s DEAD!”
Not the best quality but back then it was vhs....
Used Cars Rudy Russo Sells a Centurion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQiTRQTiMGY
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