Weekend Car Buying Roundup April 06, 2024

The dark underbelly of car buying that is un-affordability and bad financial decisions is always with us. Car payments are still at all time highs, and more people than ever are underwater on their auto loans. That hasn’t seemed to stop people from wanting to go into debt for a shiny new piece of metal, though. - Lawrence Hodge Read More

It’s first-quarter sales report time for automakers, which means I get to dig through spreadsheets to find weird little anomalies and dead cars. Some vehicles are on the chopping block, some have been dead for a model year, and some are really dead. So much so that they’re decomposing right before us. I’ve found one of those vehicles. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

The Ford Thunderbird used to be a desirable American luxury two-door coupe back in its heyday, and in the late ‘60s the model got a very special edition that was the peak of luxury. Ford produced just five of these Thunderbird Apollos for the clothing brand Abercrombie & Fitch, and one of them is up for auction on Bring A Trailer. These Thunderbirds were built to be displayed in A&F’s flagship retail stores, and they were eventually sold to actual customers. - Logan Carter Read More

For those who don’t know, I stand at a 99.9th percentile height of 6’8” tall. For a pair of long pants to fit me properly, they need a 40-inch inseam, so I’m all legs with more of an average sized torso. Cars aren’t designed to comfortably fit people of my height. I just can’t fold my legs into a reasonable driving position behind the wheel of a Mazda Miata, but at least I’m not missing out on the purest driving experience of any modern car or anything. Oh wait, yes I am. - Logan Carter Read More

With a reported urban range of around 100 miles, today’s Nice Price or No Dice LiveWire could traverse even the biggest of cities with electrons to spare. Let’s see if this electric Harley is priced to saddle up. - Rob Emslie Read More

The Volkswagen Phaeton is one of those cars that, at least on some level, everyone who knows it exists wants to experience. It’s basically a Bentley with a Volkswagen badge, and these days, even a Phaeton W12 can be temptingly cheap. Then again, there’s a reason they’ve depreciated so much. As it turns out, a Bentley with a VW badge still comes with the running costs of a Bentley, and buying a cheap Phaeton could easily ruin you financially. What if you bought one that was incredibly clean despite being driven nearly 100,000 miles, though? - Collin Woodard Read More

Matt likes driving vehicles that are different, but his 2011 Nissan Juke is getting up there in miles so it’s time to replace it with something with a bit more space and more modern features. He is ideally looking for a wagon or wagon-ish vehicle for around $30,000. What car should he buy? - Tom McParland Read More

The bumpers on today’s Nice Price or No Dice Outback show noticeable battle scars from parking lot encounters. Let’s see if those, and the car’s appreciably high miles, can be overlooked at its potentially low asking price. - Rob Emslie Read More

This week's reader has a $50,000 budget for a fancy car that can handle long commutes.

The end of the first quarter of 2024 means we get a look at some of the oddities automakers sold in the first three months of this year. Usually, it’s pretty uneventful, but sometimes you get a little gems. Take BMW’s Q1 report for example. It’s all pretty run-of-the-mill until you notice a little “1” on its spreadsheet. That “1” represents a BMW i3. Yes, the car that was last in production for the 2021 model year. Some hero decided to spend their hard-earned money on a brand new three-year-old BMW electric car, and I love them for it. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More