True of False? Most people who drive nice cars are NOT wealthy...

Can we just say household net worth of greater than 1 million? Not all will agree with this threshold (and it varies from place to place yadda yadda) but it’s a reasonable approximation of what would seem wealthy to the average American. It also means we can take advantage of the abundance of published data on millionaires (see “The Millionaire Next Door”). Like the fact that millionaires really do spend very little on their cars, on average

Getting caught up in what other people do is a recipe for unhappiness and depression. It started with TV and now we have social media (and message boards) to compare each other all day long.

I make $145k/year and drive a 2020 Hyundai Elantra that I got for $20k with 0 APR when the dealership was empty due to the pandemic. Had to get a car because public transit was nonexistent at that point in time, and I was tired of getting harrased in germy Ubers. Love the gas mileage. Might get something nicer in a few years, who knows. But I didn't have a car for 10 years before the Hyundai and loved that too.

"most people", "nice cars", "wealthy". what is the definition of these? poorly worded question. are you in high school?

How about this.

do not spend more than one months gross family income on a vehicle.

if you cannot make that money in a month, don’t buy the car. live by that and you should accumulate wealth. and the defined definition of wealthy in the US is 10 plus million FYI

As somebody who grew up in New England, nothing says "I have millions" like an old dark green Volvo or BMW station wagon.

Of course it’s not like investing in equities. Short of Porsche GT cars and of course Italian supercars, this will hold value as well as anything out there.

This Volvo 122S wagon 🤩🤩🤩 just sold for $25K on Bring A Trailer. I don't have millions (the buyer probably does?), but I'd daily drive that.

bringatrailer.com

No Reserve: 1967 Volvo 122S Wagon 4-Speed

Roffeman

Bid for the chance to own a No Reserve: 1967 Volvo 122S Wagon 4-Speed at auction with Bring a Trailer, the home of the best vintage and classic cars online. Lot #114,992.

Open link

Funny you link to a Throttle House video. Even limited run cars very rarely beat inflation. The Smoking Tire Podcast had an interview with Throttle House 6 days ago where they literally went through a list of some very limited run cars with almost no miles driven and compared their recent sale price on Bring a Trailer to inflation and the S&P. Of those, the ones that kept up with inflation would be considered to be doing well. And that's not counting registration, insurance, costs, etc. and not having the enjoyment of driving those cars. Your car will lose value.

That BMW M2 is nice.

Here is the car I’m getting:

Very wealthy people die with a bunch of money.
What’s the point in that?

That's a nice car.

So true, Sophisticated and Classy.

I trap. No taxes. Caked up out here.

I like these categories. Maybe you had this in mind, but to me, these cutoff points should have to do with different things you can do at those levels.

With a few million, you are shielded from most temporary hardships. Lost your job? You can take a couple of years to figure out what’s next. Can you live anywhere you want? No. But, in most major cities, you can feel confident that your upper middle class life will continue, even if you hit a rough patch. That’s comfortable.

Somewhere around $20M in assets, you can live an upper middle class life mostly anywhere in the US without working (~$1M/yr). So that seems like a good cutoff to call wealthy.

At $50M, you can own multiple nice houses in the most expensive real estate markets in the world. You can sink a few mil into a dumb hobby like collecting manuscripts. That’s rich.

At $100M, you can probably afford to do most of your travel private. And, if it’s what you want, you can ensure that all your kids will be wealthy, even after the divorce. That’s maybe another cutoff. That’s very rich.

Near $500M, you could start to create a family office to invest directly. You could endow a small foundation or get a building named after you at your alma matter. That’s generationally wealthy.

Once you start getting into the billions, you can buy power and shape the world. Not much with $1bn, but a little. You can buy a few reps and maybe a governor in a small state. Start some astroturf groups and hire PR firms to get your message out. Get some pet laws passed. That’s dynastic wealth.

Somewhere north of $10bn, you can become a major power broker, an institution upon yourself. There are fewer than 500 of you in the world. Governors will personally call you to ask you to relocate to their state. That’s a plutocrat.

I have a lot more invested in the S&P (and real estate and private companies) than I do in my car. I’m not delusional that it’s going to be my retirement, but it’s nice to know that I may be able to sell it for more than I paid for it (probably not inflation or cost adjusted though). Much better than buying a $100K luxury car and selling it for $30K five years later. 10-15 years from now, low mileage limited run ICE vehicles with a manual transmission will be rare. Corvette doesn’t make one currently, Ferrari doesn’t make one, Lambo doesn’t make one. Of course it’s not going to keep pace with my real investments, but it’s a lot more fun.

Thomas from Throttle house has the base M2 and Chris Harris from Top Gear owned a CS.

The Blackwings are great cars. A league of their own today with a big V8, monster power, and manual transmission with 4 doors. Unlike the Hellcats, they actually can go around a track very well.

That’s because we love them so much and they’re so spacious that once we go in we don’t come out.

Or a W126 Benz, or even an older '90s Lincoln TC. Same with the last B-body Fleetwoods (1993-1996). I like simplicity. A lot of the Greatest Generation I knew that had $ drove older Caprices and Park Avenues...not cars you'd mistake for E34 5-Series BMWs or even E39s!

So did Bill and the Prince

I wanted to build up credit (versus no credit) so I bought a '14 Camry in '20 for $12,400 (high resale for a 95k Camry) at 9.3% interest b/c of a limited credit history. Made a few payments on it, refied with a credit union at 3.75%, made more payments for another 6 mos, then paid the rest off to boost the credit rating. From now on I'll just buy cars with cash like I did before--I would buy $5,000 beaters and fix them up.