The cost of a car the year you were born article

[Jukebag]

Found this interesting article about the cost of a car the year you were born:

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/enthusiasts/the-cost...

Some quite astonishing prices when valued in today's money. I seriously doubt most ordinary working class folk could afford £507 (today's equiv of £15,685) back in 1951 to buy an Austin A30. Very few people could afford a car in the 1950s unless you had a very well paid job like a doctor. My dad, in the 60s, was earning £10 a week, so imagine trying to save up to buy a £500 Austin?, just didn't happen.

Not too sure about the 1973 MGB being £15,000, not as far as the GT goes. You can pick an MGB today for pretty much next to nothing, unless it happens to be one of those Abingdon MGB's priced at 100k.

Edited by Jukebag on Friday 22 July 23:37

[ClaphamGT3]

Apart from the Rover 800, those sound about right

As a kid growing up, the car I remember the price of was my mother's Volvo 265 GLE, registered in Jan 1979 because the old man had a complete kick off about "spending over £10k on a family car"

[Riley Blue]

It definitely happened in the 60s, just about every house on our street (London suburbs) had a car and by the end of the decade, several had two. Many of them may have been second hand but a good few were bought new, my dad bought his first new car in 1966, a Hillman Super Minx Estate. It was, from memory, his fifth car - he was an electrical engineer.

[Old Merc]

I was born in 1947,a year later we got a brand new Ford Anglia E93A,how much did that cost?
My mum was the driver because my dad was blown up and blinded serving with the RAF in WW2.He was given this car as part of his disability benefit. Remember this was at a time when WW2 had almost bankrupted the country.That was some deal for my dad and I hope you all think he deserved it.

[Mercky]

Old Merc said:

I was born in 1947,a year later we got a brand new Ford Anglia E93A,how much did that cost?
My mum was the driver because my dad was blown up and blinded serving with the RAF in WW2.He was given this car as part of his disability benefit. Remember this was at a time when WW2 had almost bankrupted the country.That was some deal for my dad and I hope you all think he deserved it.

Bloody right he did!

[Allan L]

Only goes back to 1950 and of course the equivalent today price depends on which index you use (and they don't tell us, do they?).
My 1938 Lea-Francis cost the price of a decent semi-detached house in a North London Suburb which could set you back £800000 today.
An internet calculator offers a mere £29260!

[FailHere]

Old Merc said:

I was born in 1947,a year later we got a brand new Ford Anglia E93A,how much did that cost?
My mum was the driver because my dad was blown up and blinded serving with the RAF in WW2.He was given this car as part of his disability benefit. Remember this was at a time when WW2 had almost bankrupted the country.That was some deal for my dad and I hope you all think he deserved it.

I think the Anglia was Ford's £100 car somewhere around that time. (That would have been for the basic car before you added such things as a heater or sunvisors)

[Rangeroverover]

I remember my dad buying a 1970 H reg silver shadow for £7,200, he sold it five years later for £6,600. I saw the car PMA500H about six years after that and it was still worth about £6,ooo. It always struck me as odd that it had been worth about the same all its life

[grumpy52]

The Humber of 1955 looks good value for an upper management -junior director car ,whats a modern equivalent going to cost? much more than the equivalent of £25k.

[Dr Jekyll]

An E type for the equivalent of 43K sounds pretty good.

[v8250]

Jukebag said:

unless it happens to be one of those Abingdon Steventon MGB's priced at 100k.

Amended that for you...Frontline are in Steventon, the MG factory was in Abingdon.

[Allan L]

Dr Jekyll said:

An E type for the equivalent of 43K sounds pretty good.

Yes they were pretty cheap for what they offered, such was the benefit of mass production. Bill Lyons' products were able to compete with higher quality stuff in performance as well as price, of course.

[PositronicRay]

Some you think about right but the Cortina, equivalent todays money £13k and the Capri not much more............