My in-laws bought two new—yes, new—ICE cars (some Chevy model, I think) for under $10k, total, not each, 12ish years ago. Car prices have gone totally bananas since then. I hate whatever’s happening with that.
People who like to stand out buy big cars. Big cars make people in small cars feel unsafe. So people replace their small cars with big cars. So, people in big cars buy bigger cars.....and so on.
So now every car has to have more 'safety'. Maybe if the car hitting me wasn't 5000lbs, at chest level and didn't accelerate like a bullet..... I wouldn't need more 'safety'. So now every one has bigger, "safer" and more expensive cars....... all while American road deaths keep growing with no limits in sight.
One day I will see a Ford-150 bed used for pickup truck tasks. Today is not that day.
I looked at EVERY used car in a 100 mile radius on every platform you can think of and the 2013 RAV4 with 105,000 miles at 15k hit the dealer lot the night before I purchased (they had multiple calls for that vehicle while I was filling out paperwork). Its because all the old people sold off there late 90's and 2000's cars that there STILL are no used cars anymore that aren't absolute junk (155k mileage plus junk selling for 15k - 20k). This lets dealerships sell new cars & trucks for way, way too much. If Cash for Clunkers never happened, used cars would be the competition for new cars like the Toyota Camry which are uncomfortable, basic vehicles but which set the pricing floor for the other manufacturers vehicle lines. No competition so set it at a high price point marketing it as new even though the rest of it is junk and then you can charge a premium on oyher vehicle options. (Hate the Canry but I love Toyota vehicles don't get me wrong).
All us poor people who just want a to work and back vehicle & who would buy off craigslist from private sellers don't have a market anymore and have to go dealerships. Pickups are overpriced I'll agree, and are faux status symbols, but the used market itself reaked havoc on trucks too.
Iirc the cheapest new car in the US market then was the Versa. And it was not $5k.
Maybe it was closer to 2010? Wouldn’t have been earlier.
Dealerships do sell under sticker with some regularity. Or they used to, LOL.
[edit] after some googling, I think they were two-door base-model (very base) Chevy Aveos. But I could have that wrong.
Even with this, a new Aveo for $12k in 2010 would now be ~$17k with inflation. New cars today seem to be around $17k and that includes the Versa and the Mirage. Of course wages haven't risen with inflation but that's another can of worms.