One of my first cars, which I drove for awhile after college, was a very used ’74 Beetle, which I bought back in the early ’90s for $700 in cash. According to the federal government’s (BLS) inflation calculator, that’s equivalent to about $1,800 today. That’s pretty cheap for a serviceable car but the thing was it was even cheaper than that, for at least a couple of reasons.
The first was it was easy to “get away” (the horror!) with not paying for insurance in those Before Times, because the insurance mafia had not yet succeeded in partnering with the DMV. If you checked the “insured” box on the registration application, the DMV took your word for it.
Some will object to not being honest with the DMV. This is akin to criticizing a man for not telling a mugger about the money clip hidden in his socks. Others will of course raise the alarm about someone driving without insurance – as if that caused any harm. Some people are so well-conditioned to revere authority that they get upset when someone else affronts it – never mind that affronting authority only harms the authority of government, something our ancestors considered a moral imperative.
America used to populated mostly by people who were not busybodies.
Anyhow, it was easy to “get away” with not paying the insurance mafia – just as it was easy, back then, to modify your government-required ID card (the government likes to pretend this is a “driver’s license,” as if the possessor had demonstrated driving competence) because it was just a corrugated piece of computer-printed paper that could be easily modded. Voila! You were of legal age to drink.
If you didn’t want to risk driving without insurance, the cost was still within reason because the country hadn’t yet lost its mind. Very few people drove very expensive cars. Today, two out of three cars are extremely expensive – many of them $50,000-plus trucks and SUVs, plus the $70,000-plus EVs As I have noted before in previous columns, these things are festooned with Faberge Egg fragile – and Faberge Egg expensive – plastic headlight “assemblies” and so on that are easily damaged by minor bumping into things that might have left a scratch in the Beetle’s bumper that could be buffed out with some chrome polish and elbow sweat. If you wanted to bother with it.
It was once possible, in other words, to live cheap – even if you were not a young person just starting out and lacking in the way of funds. Today, it is harder to live cheap because of the rip-tide effect of other people’s choice to live extravagantly. You get to pay more for insurance (a lot more) because of the repair-replacement costs imposed by people who choose to buy expensive vehicles, which are now commonplace vehicles. There are no longer any economy cars on the market. Only entry-level cars. This has been driven to a great extent by the seductive success of endless debt, which lots of people seem to be ok with – probably because it allows them to pretend they are more affluent than they are.
Now the pincers close.
The DMV has become the enforcement division of the insurance mafia, which narcs you out to the DMV the second your “policy” (they love to hijack free market terms, don’t they?) lapses or you refuse to pay up. A second later, you get an email from the DMV telling you that they have voided your vehicle’s registration and you’d better turn in your plates.
If you drive anyhow, it is likely your outlaw status will be sussed out by an automated license plate reader (these things are popping up like spring dandelions) and the first cop you pass by will know and wheel around to get you. Back in what used to be a remarkably free country, you could avoid problems by driving in such a way as to avoid being pulled over by a cop. You had to give them a reason, in other words. There were no “safety” or “sobriety” checkpoints once, if you can imagine such a thing. You did not have to wear a seabelt, either.
It was not all that long ago. But memories are fading.
Back to the point, which is that old cars used to be cheap and it was cheap to drive them, too. This included being cheap to fix. It is true they needed fixing more often, but it is also true that almost anyone who wanted to try could fix them. Taken together, these factors are why just about every sixteen-year-old was driving by the time he was sixteen. Today, it is not uncommon for people who are eighteen tor even older than that to not be drivers. That first rung on the ladder having been kicked out from under them. Most have no idea what they’ve been deprived of and so have no idea who’s to blame.
Bd enough. Far worse, they look to government for answers – which is like asking Satan for advice about redemption.
. . .
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First car at 15 was a 1969 Plymouth Belvedere, from Grandpa. It had sat in his yard under a sap tree for some time. Had no paint left, just light blue primer. Torn head liner I held together with diaper pins. Was so rusted you could push your thumb into the frame. Floor boards had huge holes rusted through them and you could see the road passing beneath. Upholstery was also rotted, stuffing falling out etc. cracked and split dash board. AM radio with collapsable, not flexible, antenna. I put in new brake lines and radiator. No power steering. Low mileage, ran great and surprisingly fast at speed. Jumped it off a couple small bridges and thought the rusted frame would break but it did not. Took out the back seats and drove my friends around in lawn chairs, while we drank beer. Ah, the 70’s.
Maybe it did have power steering. I can’t remember but turning the wheel with the engine off, while coasting downhill to sneak out of the house at night, was hard.
Texas Subprime Auto Lender Files for Bankruptcy
https://archive.is/quc6t
Everything in this country is a fucking racket…
My first car, in late 1966, was a 1951 Ford pickup with a 4-speed crashbox. Learning to shift that thing was a severe post-graduate lesson in driver education.
Another obstacle to discourage young people from driving, and owning, cars: In Ohio, there is a new law requiring driver’s training for those under 21.
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/politics/2025/07/02/ohiodrivers-education-course-for-people-under-21/84433427007/
Amen, Eric.
Beetles were great.
I had a ’67 … my fourth car, bought for $400 in the late 70s.
Cheap, reliable transportation to/from college.
It was the car in which I got my one and only reckless driving ticket, on Woodward Avenue, chasing my cousin in his Chevette Scooter. (We both managed to plead down to careless driving, a $50 fine — the good old days.)
That car was a blast in the snow: so easy to do precision reverse-180°s (a la Jim Rockford).
But Michigan winters spelled its doom:
One day, a pothole collapsed the entire front suspension into the trunk.
The belly pan had completely rusted out.
I gave the car to my buddy, who remade it into a dune buggy.
Who knows, that old bug might still be bringing joy to someone even today!
Not sure about anywhere else, but Nevada was one of the earliest adopters of the heavy handed DMV mode. Moved to Vegas in early 90s after getting out of the army. Also bought the newest vehicle I’d ever owned. A Nissan hardbody truck with about twenty thousand which I paid cash for.
If you had as much as an hour lapse between canceling one policy and having a new one to replace it, it was, IIRC, a 600$ fine. No ifs ands or buts. The only way out of it was produce proof in person, of contiguous coverage at your friendly neighborhood DMV. If you ignored the fine in the mail, they would summarily suspend your DL. So it was never easy to get away with and costly to try. There were so many things one could get away with in Vegas at that time, driving without tribute to the insurance gangsters was not one of them
Back in the late ’70’s, that rotten, corrupt State pulled that shit on me when I stored my car for the Winter and took off the insurance. Fuck ‘Em. I registered my car in Oregon for a cost of $10 a year.
Wow, didn’t know it went that far back. I’m sure they’re even worse now. Coming up on 15 years since we fled the varied detritus along the banks of the neon nile. Haven’t had a single day of regret.
Saw an article on our employee home page (gm) that the average age of a new car buyer is 46. WTF I’m not sure if that stat factored in leasing but still ….thanks Gov : (
Bought my 1st vehicle in 2009, still have it- 1986 diesel k5 blazer. Parts are getting expensive and discontinued, such as thermal switches which should be a $20 part in today’s funny money. Ive seen people complaining about it being $40 as too expensive in 2015, but now its running $120-$180, with a NOS version going for $275.
Good thing about old cars is worse case, I could experiment with general purpose thermal switches, or wire in a manual switch in the cab.
Actually my town has parking stickers linked to the DMV and insurance. If a vehicle is registered in town, you get a bill for a parking sticker even if its never on the street. Thats how they track them. I made the mistake of having the plate sticker on a couple motorcycles mailed to my house and had to pay a few years. Doesnt matter they are always in the garage, its automated on the DMV registry until I had the plate sticker mailed to my parent’s house out of town again.
The Future Cars We Once Had
As a lad, I distinctly recall reading a Popular Science article saying that we would have flying cars by 1985. Not knowing squat about economics — and not realizing that most lunkheads can barely drive in two dimensions, much less a third (altitude) — it sounded plausible to an impressionable kid. But 1985 rolled around, and all we got we was CDs to replace cassette tapes. Big whoop.
Concept cars displayed at auto shows were highly imaginative, too. And I do mean cars — pickups, in those simpler times, were for farmers and ranchers. They were about as sexy as flannel pajamas. Moreover, it went without saying that they were all IC-engined. Electric or even hybrid propulsion, had someone presented such a nutcase idea, would have seemed as superfluous and off-putting as three breasts on a woman.
Car shows still exist, I’ve heard. But why would anyone go there, to be assaulted with chip-controlled, software-defined appliances whose objective is to make the driver redundant? The lost-puppy auto industry no longer makes anything I want. Our former scintillating future has faded to black, taken from us by microchips and FMVSS’s and screen-based icon interfaces.
‘Open the pod bay door, HAL. I need to barf lunch outside the spaceship.‘
“Far worse, they look to government for answers – which is like asking Satan for advice about redemption.”
Thanks for the laugh Eric!
I’ve been a daily reader of yours since the Covid panic.
Thanks for all you do to present a rational view of our mixed-up world.
Thanks for the kind words, Steve!
My first car was at the time a late model used car bought for me to do what driving my Mom needed after my Dad died. It was replaced many times over the years by other used cars I purchased myself over the years dependent on funds and expected travel distances/ fuel costs.
In all the used car purchases I ever made would an EV wouldn’t have worked when travel range or cost per mile were considered. Sadly the days of a good cheap used car appear to be over. Now a cheap used car probably has a timing belt, CVT and direct injection. All of which when they go will result in a major repair bill negating any cost savings when that used car found it’s new home. 🙁
Even without those major items (CVT, rubber band timing, etc), a flaky sensor, a little corrosion on one of the hundreds of connections, a broken wire, all can render your car into an unreliable liability. Which is why even the sweet spot cars around 1996 are poor bets longer term. In a 1967 Ford, a bad connection is not going to make the car unreliable or hard to fix. It will be an inconvenience, and when needed it can be fixed by intelligent troubleshooting and repair.
Yep, in the pre-CANBUS days with a little work and a wiring diagram you could figure out where the culprit was. I had two wiring glitches in my 1979 Gran Prix. The headlight dimmer switch at the base of the steering column would cook a connector. The third time I cut the wiring connector and soldered it to the switch spade, never failed again.
The second was the HVAC power supply wire failed between the fuse box and the controller in the lower middle dash area. No fan motor, no AC clutch. I started tracing that wire, it disappeared into the upper dash area over the instrument cluster. Nope, not pulling the dash into pieces for that one wire. I found an open switched connection in the fuse block, ran a wire from there into the HVAC control woo hoo back in business! Zero dollar and a quick fix.
Try that in a modern car with CANBUS and a “body module” running the show. Now it’s expensive cars with expensive fixes.
Though it could definitely be screwed up by an idiot. I had a buddy bring me his 72 Charger to “check out the electrical”. I had suffered a fire under the dash and every wire was replaced with yellow 16ga. You had to turn the wipers on to start it… I told him to go buy a new harness- I think he dunked the car.
florida is no different from virginia, even though it is almost completely dominated by the repuglicans. may hurt some feelings. scumbags thru and thru!
The current seat of Republican power in Florida is The Villages, an entire community of busybody retirees who have nothing better to do with their time besides activities which have led to the spike in the STD rates in the three counties the development spans.
HOA law in the state, FS720, has grown increasingly draconian under Republican control since Jeb! signed the statute into law.
The Vega station wagon was my perfect first car. It was cheap to buy, cheap to own, and relatively reliable. It had some giddyup but not so much as to be dangerous for a teen driver. The hand brake on the center console was for your passenger to throw us into a fish tail on Southern country dirt roads. I miss that old heap.
If GM had offered a V8 in the Vega instead of that poorly engineered unsleeved aluminum block with a cast iron coated piston if I remember correctly it might have been a successful pocket rocket. According to one site GM saved $2.00 not sleeving the block with an iron liner.
They thought it was a viable option, that the aluminum block would stand up. Once rebuilt with sleeves it was a pretty good engine.
As for the V8, it came in the Vega’s sexier sister, the Monza/Starfire/Skyhawk/Sunbird. Which was a whole lot of fun. I put a Buick 455 in my Skyhawk, then had to repeatedly replace the rear end.