My first thought is normally, "Jeeze, all that money for a tool that gets you from one place to another?"
My original comment was pointing out the disparity between a nice car and a nice laptop. Even a 20k car is at least 5x the cost of a top of the line laptop.
Gentoo would have been an even better analogy.
You can also get a similar era V10 M5 or M6 for about the same cash and those will go like crazy. Again, to my eyes, good looking cars.
If you're patient and haggle well you can probably pick up a viper SRT-10, although you might be waiting a while; I see some around $24k but no lower without salvage titles.
I could go on, but you get my point. There are a ton of cars out there that really are pretty incredible for not a lot of money.
Huh, you're right. Actually, more than right. If I don't mind travelling across the country, I can get a 2005 SL55 AMG for $7,500. That car was 6 figures at release, though. That's a LOT of value to lose!
> They're also, to my eyes, pretty good looking
I will disagree there. I think they look boring as all hell. Obviously, this is entirely subjective.
> There are a ton of cars out there that really are pretty incredible for not a lot of money.
I might dispute "incredible" here, for two reasons. First, surprisingly cheap high-performance cars are so frequently from luxury brands that don't consider long-term reliability to be luxury features. Also, despite the SL55 AMG being able to hit 200 MPH, it weighs more than most SUVs, and so has a pitiful 0-60 time of 4.5 seconds. I admit I'm moving the goal posts a bit here, but quick acceleration is more important to me than top speed. I can't use 200 mph on my daily commute, but I can use a 0-60 speed on the on-ramp, or whenever I need to accelerate quickly to pass someone.
my hot hatch can do it in six seconds, and even that is a bit too much to use unless the road is wide open with no traffic.
But if 0-60 is most important, I'd look at things like that SRT-10 (which makes it in 3.7s stock) or maybe even soup up a CTS-V, which can hit it in 3.3 with some work. Granted both of those, with modifications, will probably wind up closer to $25k than $20-- but who knows, you might get lucky.
Despite that, I maintain my original position: these are far, far beyond just being "nice" cars, and unless you can get a nice computer system for less than negative $80,000 there is no way to get such a system for even one hundred thousand dollars less than these cars, let alone several hundred thousand.
I know I wrote my comment in a "haha gotcha" style but my main point is that most people with disposable income have areas where they splurge, and areas where they save. maybe it's not the car or the computer, but I bet you own at least one item that your peers would think you spent too much money on.
instead of shitting on people who spend money on stuff we don't personally value, or imply they only did it to show off how rich they are, why not just assume they bought it because they enjoy it?
Indeed if it weren't for people pursuing the new shiny, I'd have to pay at least 10x for the same utility. But as it is I'm glad to re-purpose/reuse. I have no delusions that I'm not a scavenger in this economic realm. Though I do appreciate a solid "grandpa" car that seats 6 and can tow a few thousand pounds and can still get 30mpg on the highway.
Work is a totally different story, but not bought by me, and also spec'd to utility, not extravagance.