So you think that you should get more items on a car and then pay the same for it? You've gone absolutely mad.
People WANT these so-called "luxury" items on cars. They are willing to pay for them, clearly, because there are no cars that don't have them on there.
If GM made a car that didn't had a 40 hp engine and no power steering and no power brakes and no ABS and no a/c and no padded dash and no seat belts and no air bags and no automatic transmission and no front/rear crumple zones and no side impact door beams, it might sell for $5000, which would be less than your VW Beetle. But the long and the short of it is that people don't want cars without that stuff, so they pay more--which we've already established that they do.
We have established nothing of the sort. We have, in fact, established that they are paying, adjusted for inflation, what they were paying 40 years ago. SAME PRICE. What has changed is that they cannot afford to pay the same money in three years anymore. Now they need five or six years to pay the SAME PRICE.