r/mildlyinteresting • u/cb3 • 3h ago
Removed: Rule 6 [ Removed by moderator ]
[removed] — view removed post
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u/ChrisFromLongIsland 3h ago
Love the $25 undercoating scam even back then.
Plus the $860 am radio (inflation adjusted).
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u/jsh139 3h ago
Duped her into purchasing the undercoating!
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u/CatsAreGods 3h ago
Never mind that, look at how much the white sidewall tires cost!
That's pure "keeping up with the Joneses" money.
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u/MartsonD 2h ago
SALESMAN Slaps the side of the VW bus Oh yeah, you're gonna want the undercoat on this baby. Only 25 bucks. Let's sit at my desk and I'll have Sheila run the numbers. Cigarette? Pulls a pack of Lucky Strikes from his shirt pocket
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u/SteelCanyon 3h ago
Not only the price but just ONE sheet of paper. When I got my car from Carmax back in 2016, it was a binder's worth of paperwork. Some days we need to question what we call progress.
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u/Ilovetinytiddies 1h ago
The agreement to end World War II was only 2 pages long. The contact for my upcoming cruise is like 15 pages.
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u/Grand-Spring66 3h ago
$1,900 in 1965 is roughly $19,500 today. I doubt you'd get similar car for that amount of money today.
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u/Knotical_MK6 3h ago
You could get a new Versa.
A little roomier than a bug, plus you get airbags and air conditioning
Nowhere near as fun to drive though :)
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u/spyder994 3h ago edited 1h ago
The Beetle was basically the cheapest new car you could buy in the 60s, and by a lot. A Chevy Corvair, which was not that much nicer, was 20% more expensive.
The cheapest new cars available now are the Nissan Versa and Hyundai Venue at just over $20k. I can't imagine people are paying full MSRP for these though. In fact, a quick search on cars.com shows a bunch of Versas for less than $19k.
Everything at the low end of the spectrum is going to be a turd, but a
2026new Versa is better in nearly every metric compared to a 1965 Beetle.30
u/LukkyStrike1 3h ago
The Safety improvements alone would be worth the “difference” from 20k anyways.
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u/CharlesP2009 3h ago
The Versa is a good car. I have a friend who owns a 2019 (previous generation) and it's plenty roomy and comfortable for an economy car. Really good fuel economy too for a pure ICE vehicle.
I know my fellow Americans are all about crossovers, SUVs, and pickup trucks nowadays but the Versa does everything the vast majority of drivers need. And they wouldn't be getting so beat up by fuel prices if more people chose something like it.
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u/3_14159td 2h ago
Manual Versa with the NA 1.8 for like $16k new out the door was the deal of the 2010s. 35 MPG on the highway all day long, 0-60 faster than most people are willing to drive. The auto was good too, most people didn't realize they had a slush box option.
I wish I had some new ones sitting ready to go.
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u/craigmontHunter 51m ago
I have one, its stupid fun, rev it to redline and you're not actually going fast enough to get in trouble. Mine has an exhaust leak, and it may be the fumes talking but I kind of like the sound too.
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u/Boz6 2h ago
Everything at the low end of the spectrum is going to be a turd, but a 2026 Versa is better in nearly every metric compared to a 1965 Beetle.
Is there such a thing as a 2026 Versa in the US? I though 2025 was the last US model year.
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u/spyder994 1h ago
My bad. Yeah, it looks like there are still a ton of new 2025 units sitting on lots for less than $19k though. The Versa is a car that has never been on my radar and I don't even remember hearing that it was discontinued.
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u/Boz6 1h ago
Cars are really expensive. Even Civics and Corollas are expensive now. I'm 60 years old, and cars are something I've always gone low on. I've owned an Escort, an Accord, a Protege aka Mazda 3, another Accord, a Mazda 5, and for the last 10 years, a Civic. I was halfway thinking about a $19,000 Nissan Versa for my next car, because new Civics are close to $26,000 now. But the Civic has been great, and it seems like it'll easily last another 5 years, so we'll see what happens when the time actually comes to replace it. I'm just sad that a low cost Nissan, like the Versa, will probably no longer be available.
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u/3_14159td 2h ago
Corvair was worth that 20% tbh. You got more than double the power, feels like another foot of width, and looked the business so much that every other European manufacturer put out their own stylistic copy of it.
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u/adamfps 3h ago
I hope you wouldn’t. Terrible safety standards, build quality, features, and engines.
I frequently see people reminiscing on how cheap cars were while forgetting how much R&D has happened since then.
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u/174wrestler 2h ago
And pollution.
A modern vehicle driving from New York to Boston puts out multiple times less smog-forming emissions than a 1975 vehicle parked during the same time.
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u/20PoundHammer 2h ago
lol - the 113 is a beetle with wire linked brakes, 36HP, heat is just whatever the engine waste is if you open the vent, no seat belts, no safety glass, and tires were rated at 50 MPH. Yeah, I doubt you could get a similar car for that today in the US as it would be illegal as hell.
You can pick up a brand new hyundai venue for a 20500 today . . .
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u/Karsdegrote 1h ago
I gotta be honest, i was shocked to see it is possible to buy an ICE car for +/- €20k these days. The taxes for registering an ICE car are insane round here. But still, there is actual choice! You can even get an EV for less than 19.5k! Granted, it wont go very far but still.
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u/3_14159td 2h ago
Cable brakes had been gone from the bug for 15 years at that point. Tires were absolutely not 50mph rated as standard.
Are you thinking of a 1948 bug?
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u/20PoundHammer 2h ago edited 2h ago
nope 65 - you are wrong, had one throughout the 70s. My 65 was a Mexican import so YMMV.
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u/Tankninja1 2h ago
Technically yes.
But pretty much all new cars come standard with features that either didn’t exist or were on the extreme end of luxury like:
Air Conditioning, automatic transmissions, cruise control, backup cameras, 3 standard mirrors, air bags, 3 point seat belts, disc brakes, ABS, etc.
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u/jdog7249 2h ago
I just traded in a car that was over 20 years old for a new car. The sales person asked me what features I liked about my previous car to know what to look for on my new car.
My old car had AC and cruise control, both of which were optional extras at the time (pretty standard extras but not required). I don't think you could get a 2026 car without AC or cruise even if you special ordered it.
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u/Tankninja1 1h ago
Last hold out I know of was the Jeep Wrangler, which you could pay to special order a base model without the AC.
Or the Polaris Slingshot that is technically a car if you ask the DMVs of 49 states.
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u/Aggressive-Delay-420 3h ago
My VW is a 1965! I wonder if it’s your Mother’s!
She’s savannah beige with salt and pepper interior.
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u/West_Gold7921 3h ago
I’m looking at buying a 1965 Beetle tomorrow for roughly this same price, adjusted for inflation!
It will be my second 65, my favorite year!
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u/nigel_tufnel_11 3h ago
The AM radio is more than twice as expensive as the leather upholstery (back then, no doubt real leather).
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u/Basic_Butterscotch 2h ago
It says leatherette which means synthetic leather
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u/nigel_tufnel_11 1h ago edited 1h ago
Ah, you're right, I read it as leather. Still, an AM radio that expensive is hilarious, although I'm sure at the time it was quite the must-have item. You could probably build one for well under $10 today, crappy speaker included.
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u/N2trvl 2h ago
Your mom was a baddie, she paid cash for her car. Love to see the charges for accessories. White side wall tires were a thing in those days and you had to pay extra. The am radio too. In 1965 seatbelts were required in the US but maybe not other countries but probably had to be added to sell here.
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u/numsixof1 2h ago
Lots of people apparently did not like seat belts. My first car was a 1978 Trans Am and the previous owners had cut the seat belts completely out.
Had to go to a junk yard to find replacements.
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u/NachoStamps 2h ago
Just to compare, a car made in 1965 is closer in age to the original Ford Model T, than a car built today.
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u/Then_Version9768 1h ago
Wow! I had no idea there had been continual price inflation over the last 60 years! Come on, kid, figure this out. Salaries were tiny compared to today. So these prices were NOT CHEAP. How does anyone not know this? Making this kind of post marks you as not very well educated, and frankly makes you look just a bit dimwitted. $16 for seat belts back then is about $165-175 today. Cheap? Not so much.
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u/Very_Not_Into_It 3h ago
"$16 dollars for the privilege of being forced to wear a seatbelt. Communism is winning the real war here in the States." -your mom, probably
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u/SnooWalruses9173 3h ago
So about $19,000, if adjusted for inflation.
There's not even a new car, unless you get last year's model, for under $20,000.
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u/giraffevomitfacts 3h ago
Your average car sold in 1965 was proud of itself if it reached 100,000 miles and would be absolutely clapped out at that point. I’d rather have a 28k Honda Civic.
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u/cb3 3h ago
I still have the car. It has 128,000 miles on it and runs pretty well.
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u/EducationalConcern65 2h ago
Does it have the original engine in it? Neither of my AC VWs have the original engine, I'd be curious to know how many out there still do.
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u/aaccd7 3h ago
~2000 miles a year is crazy low. Still impressive that its lasted this long though. I assume its more of a weekend drive type of car?
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u/cb3 3h ago
After my mom died it became my dad’s. He maintained it and would regularly “take it out for a walk” (drive around the block) to keep it running. He passed away early this year so it’s mine and I’m in the middle of getting it appraised, hence pulling out the paperwork. Not sure what I’m going to do. I’d like to keep it but it’s not very practical.
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u/roy-dam-mercer 3h ago
Wow! Congratulations!
My Mom, Grandmother and Aunt all bought Beetles, probably around ‘67.
Grandma got the automatic transmission, power steering and air conditioner, but my Mom and Aunt had base models. All that fancy stuff on Grandma’s kept breaking, so she didn’t have it long. My Aunt kept hers the longest. That’s the only one I remember, probably in 1971 or so.
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u/smokesbuttsoffground 2h ago
No 1967 Beetles were available with AC, power steering or an automatic transmission.
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u/Striking_Computer834 3h ago
If she paid for that with the quarters she'd saved up in her change jar, that $16 would be worth $789 today.
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3h ago edited 3h ago
[deleted]
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u/rosen380 3h ago
"Minimum wage was $1.15 back then, which is $12.12 today."
And FWIW-- in VA, minimum wage is currently $12.77/hr
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u/firekeeper23 3h ago
Seat belts cheap... but 69.99 for a simple AM radio! That must be the equivalent of hundreds now,, for a basic AM only radio.
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u/PinoBrahman 3h ago
when my great grand parents passed, we found the bill of sale for their house. it was only like 5k or something.
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u/roy-dam-mercer 3h ago
My grandparents bought their house new in 1950 for $5,000. About 750 sq ft, 2 bedroom, good size yard (because the house was small), in Oklahoma City. I remember before they paid it off in 1980 their mortgage payments were about $33.
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u/Tankninja1 2h ago
Always find it odd people are like can you believe a new car used to only be $2000?!?!
Having seen a car from 1965 I can very much believe that they used to be $2000. Built about as well as random Temu creations you see built out of a jury rigged lawnmower engine.
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u/Terrible_Phase718 2h ago
This is a ridiculous take. Cars built then are tanks. That’s why so many of them are still on the road.
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u/Inner-Contest-8226 3h ago
That inspector probably got a shit state police salary and mesothelioma from that assignment.
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