Last week we launched into a great discussion about the price of new snowmobiles. I’m quite grateful for all the thoughtful, engaged comments that people wrote in response to that first part of the series.
As I wrote in the comments section, the point of that story and the subsequent parts is NOT to say that snowmobiles are inexpensive or that you should buy one. Rather, it was to refute the perception that new snowmobiles today are thousands of dollars more expensive than new snowmobiles from another era.
Today I want to talk trucks, since it’s a style of vehicle many of us drive, and because I was curious how its price has changed over the same period of time that we compared snowmobiles in Part I.
As seen HERE, a 1994 Chevrolet C-1500 ½-ton 4×4 pickup truck (above) with an extended cab had a base MSRP price of $18,179.
When I plug that $18,179 into the same Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator that I used to compare the snowmobiles, the number it spits out into today’s dollars is $30,670. In other words, that’s the cost of our ’94 truck in today’s dollars.
By comparison a 2018 Chevy Silverado ½-ton, 4×4, Super Crew cab MSRP starts at $36,080.
Which means today’s “equivalent” Chevy pickup truck is $5,400 MORE than it’s 1994 equivalent. That’s a 17.64% inflationary price increase, as compared to the 15.1% inflationary increase in price on our snowmobile example.
Hmmm… I’ll admit that expected the inflationary price increase of trucks to be higher than it is.
Now, just like I’d argue that a 2018 Arctic Cat ZR 6000 offers FAR more features, comfort and capability than a ’94 ZR, the same is true for a 2018 pickup truck compared to its 1994 predecessor.
Whether you, I or anyone else thinks that the extra features and comfort we’d get for $5600 when buying a new Chevy pickup is worth it, is a personal decision. My personal choice in this matter is reflected by the just-beginning-to-rust 2006 Chevy pickup that sits in my driveway, which I purchased, used, in 2012 with around 90,000 miles on it.
I’ll pause for a moment to say that – from the nuts of wisdom I’ve gathered on the path of life – buying used vehicles (instead of new ones) has been a great way for me to save some serious coin. And I’ve consciously used those savings to buy kickass toys like snowmobiles, bicycles and motorcycles.
Let’s Part II of this series here, with the above paragraph serving as an appropriate transition to what will be Part III later this week.
Thanks for reading.