Your problem is ignoring depreciation. Yes, you may pay more if you buy a new car today with X flashy feature, but that will have little bearing on its used pri

Your problem is ignoring depreciation. Yes, you may pay more if you buy a new car today with X flashy feature, but that will have little bearing on its used price in two decades, because the flashy features depreciate at a rate far faster than the feature of the car, y'know, actually moving. In 20 years from now, if you buy a $1000 cheap beater car it will not be $600 of car and $400 of backup camera, it will be $990 of car and $10 of backup camera. The same for airbags (the US GAO estimated they added $300 to the manufacturers' costs) - a $1000 car is not $700 of car and $300 of airbags. (Also, the rear view camera is a tiny, tiny fraction of the car's manufacturing cost. Yes, as an option it costs $xxx, but option sticker prices are nowhere the actual cost of the option.)