I'm not an expert, and I'm just spitballing here, but I'd say it's some combo of the following:
- cars last a lot longer, a 200k mile car still might have a couple years of solid life left
- inflation makes 2000$ now 4000$
- everyone is hard up for cash and needs to sell stuff at the most possible amount of money
- boomers are famous for considering everything they touch to increase in value
- a ton of used cars are off the market due to gov shenanigans
- the typical car is much pricier now, so the typical used car is also pricier
anyone got any others?
Yeah I'm sure it was.
It's a catch 22 though, the clunkers being removed were heavy polluters. I have a 60s C10 and that thing pollutes like crazy. Looks beautiful though.
Other issues are the CAFE standards that motivated large expensive trucks and the general social change towards large SUVs. I hate those big crossovers, my wife has one and it's a POS.