This got me to dig into historical prices a little, and turns out I was even more wrong than that. Looks like car prices were pegged to inflation until about 19

This got me to dig into historical prices a little, and turns out I was even more wrong than that. Looks like car prices were pegged to inflation until about 1997, where they level off while overall CPI keeps growing: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCNS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCNS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SETA01?utm_source=series_page&utm_medium=related_content&utm_term=related_resources&utm_campaign=categories https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SETA01?utm_source... That said, loan terms are lengthening and subprime loans are a large and growing part of the market. That has to be buttressing prices. I really can't back this up, but my suspicion is that over the long term, available credit has helped discourage auto makers from simply making cheaper cars. Today you can buy a cheap appliance computer for a price that would've been unimaginable in 1995. And you can buy a cheap appliance car... for about the same price as in 1995. Obviously the two markets don't work the same way, but there's still something odd about that.