At a time when Americans increasingly want pricey SUVs and trucks rather than small cars, the Mirage remains the lone new vehicle whose average sale price is under 20 grand — a figure that once marked a kind of unofficial threshold of affordability. With prices — new and used — having soared since the pandemic, $20,000 is no longer much of a starting point for a new car.

This current version of the Mirage, which reached U.S. dealerships a decade ago, sold for an average of $19,205 last month, according to data from Cox Automotive. (Though a few other new models have starting prices under $20,000, their actual purchase prices, with options and shipping, exceed that figure.)

  • Ghyste
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    1 year ago

    I feel like you don’t understand that, in addition to the transportation shortfalls from the comment above, people are also stuck buying whatever vehicle they can afford, which oftentimes are the tanks you describe, which unfortunately have the aftermarket values that fall into lower earners’ price range.

    Short of that, I challenge you to get a popular rapper to talk about their pimped out Prius.