In some ways, it’s a great time to love cars. Internet aggregators have made it easier than ever to search for cars, 3D printing means out-of-production parts can be reproduced at home, and communities exist for just about every make and model. In some ways, it’s also not a great time to be into cars because the ones you like are probably getting more expensive. This week, car YouTuber and Cars & Bids co-founder Doug DeMuro published a first-quarter market report, and it seems like that trend is going to continue. In addition to stating that “The only way is up,” DeMuro wrote: “if you’re a few years away from your childhood dream car, but it’s clearly the truth: We’re witnessing rapidly escalating interest in modern enthusiast cars from increasingly wealthy modern car enthusiasts – and the start of 2026 certainly shoved it in our face.” While he does have an incentive for people to buy now, other data corroborates that now seems like a good moment to really take that stretch-goal dream car seriously.
Of course, this isn’t about chrome-bumpered machines of the 1960s. If anything, the values of those cars are generally softening. It’s also not about late-model stuff, as depreciation still hasn’t really sunk its claws into vehicles like the current-generation Porsche 911, the Toyota GR Supra, or the Audi RS 3. Instead, this is about cars after the detuned malaise era but before just about every power steering system under the sun went electric.
In the 1990s, cars became really rather good. The mid-decade inclusion of a standardized onboard diagnostics connector made repair easier, pretty much everything finally had electronic fuel injection so you could just hop in and go, and chassis rigidity had generally advanced beyond the wet noodle stage. At the same time, manual gearboxes were still quicker than automatics, natural aspiration was still the norm, and curb weights hadn’t ballooned to silly levels. The result is that as the hive mind’s definition of what makes a great enthusiast car coalesces around cars from say, roughly 1990 to 2010, we’re seeing multiple generations of enthusiasts competing for the same pool of vehicles.
When you have a large buyer pool competing for a finite number of vehicles, law of supply and demand suggests that prices are going to go up. As that happens, there’s a good chance that regular people like you and I might be priced out of our stretch-goal cars, whatever they are. I probably won’t have a TVR Sagaris anytime soon, just like how someone in their early thirties making $200,000 a year in total compensation is probably seeing the 2005 to 2006 Ford GT slipping further from their grasp. So what does this mean for more affordable cars? As DeMuro wrote:
For years, Gen Xers and Millennials swapped E36 M3s and NSXs on web forums for cheap, while Boomers garnered huge attention paying seven figures for certain rare 1960s Chevy Camaro models at Barrett-Jackson. Those days are changing. The next generation is making good money, now; the Boomers are passing down funds to younger heirs, and desirable vehicles from the modern era are making the switch from “used car” to “exciting classic,” as they become harder to find in anything resembling the condition we remember from the showrooms of our youth. Soon, we’ll be the Boomers paying $775,000 for a Chevelle, except the Chevelle will be an R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R, and the dollar figure might be higher.
A great example of this is the Mark IV Toyota Supra, often referred to by its A80 chassis code. The median hammer price on Bring A Trailer in 2018 was about $51,009. In 2026 so far, that figure’s been $91,954. While that’s down about $6,500 compared to the first four months of 2025, the sorts of examples we’ve seen in the marketplace have been different. Early 2025 was notable because a bunch of low-mileage cars went under the hammer. Often lower than the mileage on examples that have shifted this year. At the same time, the first few months of 2026 saw several right-hand-drive JDM imports sell on Bring A Trailer, which have historically held lower values than left-hand-drive U.S.-market examples. If we filter by left-hand-drive, the media A80 Supra transaction price on Bring A Trailer is actually up nearly $12,000 compared to the same period last year.
As for some of the sky-high bonkers auction results you’ve probably sent to your friends, the interesting part about outstanding hammer prices like that $125,500 manual V6 Porsche Cayenne from a few months ago is how a rising tide lifts … maybe not all boats, but certainly many. When buyers with big money to spend aren’t afraid to flex the might of their checkbooks on top-tier examples of cars, it has historically tended to raise the trend line for nice-condition, weekend-toy-spec examples. That ridiculous $205,392 result for an ultra-low-mileage stick-shift E92 BMW M3 probably won’t raise the values of rebuilt title, DCT-equipped convertibles much, but a string of strong results could have a meaningful impact on reasonably low-mileage coupes with manual gearboxes.
So if you don’t want to miss the boat, what can you do? Well, most of us have three options, the first of which is giving up. I usually don’t advocate for this in any avenue of life unless all other options are exhausted. On the one hand, if you can technically buy your stretch-goal dream car right now, but it wouldn’t be the most comfortable thing in the world, knowing that the money you spend on buying the car doesn’t just disappear is a little bit of solace. If you need to, you can always sell it later, likely for at least what you bought it for if it’s still in good working order.
Another option is financing, and this is where things can get a bit risky. While solid values mean you’ll need a much smaller down payment to not be underwater on a collector car, it’s important to leave enough liquidity to afford repairs and to make sure you’re willing to eat the interest in the event that appreciation doesn’t surpass the finance charges. Obviously, I’m not a financial professional, and this is not financial advice, but financing a collector car often requires a certain level of risk tolerance, but can be more stable than financing a new car at the same value for the same terms. I probably wouldn’t want to finance anything that’s out of warranty, but that’s just me and the way I work. Know your individual limit, play within it and all that. [Ed Note: I’ve always heard that financing a used car is more challenging than getting a good interest rate on a loan for a new car. Someone more literate in this area may be able to chime in. -DT].
A few years ago, I found myself in a similar pre-purchase-nerves position with what would become my Boxster. It was offered at a deal I may not have been able to replicate in the future and was in my dream color combination, but at that point, it was still more than I’d ever spent on a car before. I did my diligence, braced my bank account for impact, and haven’t regretted it. I love looking at it, I love working on it, I love the people I’ve met because of it, but perhaps most of all, I love driving it. Is it worth more than when I bought it? Surprisingly, a little. Would I sell my attainable dream car? Not a chance.
When it comes to buying fun cars that have already hit the bottoms of their depreciation curves, the best time to buy from a financial perspective is often yesterday, and the second-best time is as soon as you can realistically afford it, even if that depends on your definition of “afford” because it’s different for everyone. While not every car or indeed, every example of every car will see a substantial rise in value over the next few years, it’s an exceedingly safe prediction that the fuel-injected cars we like will probably get more expensive. If the one you want is within grasp and you won’t have to touch a rainy day fund, there’s no harm in taking a closer look today.
At the same time, these cars are a luxury, and in challenging economic times, rushing to buy a collector car may not be the move, either. And that’s totally fine; as much as we joke that it’s not the case, there are more important things in life than a crisp six-speed and the sound of an NA V8.
Top graphic image: Acura
I’ve never cared much for Doug I put him sort of in the pat goss territory. Sort of throwing around “expertise” that’s non existent. Just a salesmen and someone who likes certain things. The car market like any market is always up and down. When you factor in inflation it gives perspective as well. It’s rare you will buy a car and beat the s&p 500 it happens but people win the lottery too. What are the chances you can buy at the bottom and are ready to sell at the top. Would you even want to. Or think it’s going to keep going up and be emotionally attached.
I admire hoovie he puts it all out there doesn’t claim be some kind of genius. I just can’t fathom what he sees in Doug. Hoovie has had some interesting insights in the collectors market. The 30s and 40s cars that were sky high and we were told would always be sky high. Are falling because the older people that had the money the buy the car they always wanted did and drove the prices up. They are dying and so the values are falling like rocks. There are numerous other examples of something being hot in the market for a few years and crashing.
With the attention span of people now plus more financial instability along with a culture of disposable items while at the same time cars lasting longer. I wouldn’t be shocked to see specific vehicle values shoot up then crash in a few years. We have seen this recently with some 80s and 90s cars. Some cars are going to attract big money collectors and might stay valuable longer like in the past. But it could be the exception to the rule now.
Doug was a great auto journalist, but it’s key to remember that he is now effectively a car salesman. Still a great guy from what I’ve heard, but also a salesman, gotta keep that straight. And I agree about the financial advice below to not finance a classic car. But yeah once certain cars get attention from collectors who just want to park a bunch of investments in the garage it’s going to get harder and harder to buy those cars until the generation that loved them most (those that grew up around them) starts to uh, “age out”, of the human population…
There was a huge meme in the early aughts about using your 401K to buy the classic car of your dreams. “You get to drive your money instead of looking at a spreadsheet.” I wonder how well that worked out for people? I can’t imagine a Shelby Mustang or Yenko Camaro out performed the market for 15 years, but that’s probably why I’m poor.
That’s the irony of collecting as investment.
My wife’s grandfather is still alive, and has hoarded massive collections of all sorts of nonsense that he’s excited to pass down as an “investment”, massively overstating the value of all of it as if it could never go down in value. Unfortunately, everything he collected is extremely generation specific, and only really holds value to people who… are either dead or about to die. The family has begged him to sell it off because a) it’s clogging up the entire house they live in, b) we have no idea what to do with it and c) whatever value it has will evaporate once that generation makes their final eBay purchase.
Yeah, one of my car adjacent hobbies is slot cars, and the “value” of the cars from my youth are insane, but I keep telling myself they are just toys, and not worth hundreds of dollars per car just to relive my formative years, especially when newer cars are better. I literally can build them cheaper, and better, so that’s what I’ve focused on. The biggest Whales in the hobby are all a generation older than me, and when they go that market will collapse. I’m not saying I’ll be buying, I already have too many cars and not enough time to race them; so it’s best to just enjoy what I have.
Yeah, this is the way.
That happened to my aunt and uncle. She collected pottery, crystal, dishes, figurines, etc, etc, and he was into Japanese art, orchids, and some other stuff. They spend $$$$ collecting this stuff and also did additions on their house to store and display it. The estate sale was a shocking reminder of how little that stuff was worth.
It did convince my parents to sell of a bunch of their stuff.
I have a rule to never buy a thing for investment, only something that I want and don’t plan on selling at a profit. I got half-burned once (I actually did want the car, but thought I could also make a quick profit, which I did not) and never again. Other than some models I don’t expect to be worth more than I paid for, I have one collectible thing, a 1912 Iver Johnson truss frame Special Racer that I wanted because of the aesthetics, to try out an old racing bike to see what it was like (very comfortable laid back geometry, surprisingly light, great feel of quality, terrible handling—slow, yet kind of twitchy), and the history (built fairly locally, interesting construction, Major Taylor won a world championship on one, and the gun company division put out at least one hilariously meme-worthy old ad of a little girl playing with their “safe” hammerless pistol in bed). It’s probably worth what I put into it. It was worth a good bit more a few years back, but I don’t plan on selling it unless I really have to.
Yeah I fell into this trap with comic books, to the point where I’d buy two copies so I had a pristine investment copy. When I parted ways with them 20 years later I certainly didn’t break even. What I did shed was a ton of emotional labor keeping them safe. I already have a job to make money, so I’ll leave my investment efforts to the professionals, and use my meager disposable income to things that make my life better.
I had a friend who did the same thing. When he lived in NYC, he rented a storage unit in NJ that was mostly for the comic books. When he finally got sick of lugging them around and tried to get money for them, I doubt he broke even for the money he spent on the storage alone. He also bought stuff like the Elvis stamps in uncut sheets. I remember telling him the reason the old stuff was worth money was because nobody saved it—which he knew—and he and everyone else is expecting them to be a payday someday, the market will be flooded. As for the comic books, though, he did enjoy them, so it wasn’t a total waste, even if he bought extra ones. Especially the death of Superman, I think he bought a half-dozen copies or something and they’re probably still in the original plastic somewhere sitting in a comic book shop used section unsold for $5 (I have no idea what the market value is for that, but I’m sure they’re not worth much).
This whole line of thinking is just flawed. Take the Supra referenced in the article that increased in value from $51k in 2018 to $92k today (zomg!) If you’d just dropped your $51k into a simple S&P500 index fund in 2018 instead of that Supra, you’d now have over 100k. So you can still buy the Supra now 8 years later and you also have an extra ten grand because you waited.
If you look at it purely from an investment point of view, you’re absolutely right.
What you don’t get out of that path is a dream car to enjoy.
If you enjoy your dream car, it goes down in value from the added miles or the wear and tear from being on the road.
Hence why cars are nearly universally considered to be bad investment vehicles (no pun intended).
But then it’s been justified in the context of a speculative investment that it won’t actually function as.
The article’s argument is buy now or you will never be able to afford the car later. However if you had the free cash flow to buy a Supra for $51K in 2018 you also could just have easily hung onto that money and let it continue to grow. The idea to stretch to buy a hobby car or even worse finance it doesn’t make much sense.
$51K in an S&P 500 index fund on March 2018 would be worth $142K today.
I get what you’re saying, and I agree this isn’t good financial advice. The thing is, I could probably have retired by this point in my life had I been frugal as all hell and not had kids. But something tells me I might be looking back wondering what I missed out on.
My dream car(s) are a million shitboxes so I don’t have to worry!
Not interested in anything Doug has to say anyway
Ha! We must be related. Thanks to a friend, my fleet has a name, “The Empire of Junk.”
Hell yeah! Ha ha…like on Sanford and Son:
“Listen, but I built
this empire for you.
I even named it
after you… “And Son.”
“Sanford and Son is more than just a name. It’s a condition, a dynasty, an empire. This here is the finest pile of junk of the world.”
For the comments lamenting what Demuro has become, this is what Doug always was. Like alcohol, money doesn’t change people, it causes or allows them to lower their mask and show what they really are. Even when he was writing, he made my fists twitch and, at the time, I couldn’t really say why other than sometimes you just dislike someone for no reason, but even then I should have known that the gut is always right. I’ve been wrong about people I liked, but the gut’s never been wrong about someone that causes it to churn.
This.
I suppose from the perspective of someone without wealth, someone who “becomes” terrible with wealth would have seemed “on your side” before they got rich; but that’s because they were on their own “side” all along, and their side used to be “not-rich”. They are now rich, and that’s what they care about.
My arc of DeMuro observation went from the Jellopicnic days when I thought “huh, this guy’s definitely got stuff to say but his video shtick is grating” to “oh god now he’s on YouTube and he’s optimized his algorithm so THHHHHIS is how it’s gonna be now” to tuning out until it was time to go “okay, he’s cashed out and chilling in Nantucket… nice for some folks, I guess.”
Then I heard him on a podcast recently and boy did he ever have a lot of sharp edges. Honestly, I dug it. It was like having a clown sit down next to you at a bar, take off his rubber nose, and start dishing about what it’s like to work for kids.
I can agree with the notion that the person we see now is who he always was, I just don’t share the sense of betrayal a lot of people seem to feel. BringATrailer blew up the collector car market long before Doug decided he could carve off a chunk, and I don’t think he’s a bad guy for doing so. The layoffs came after investors had taken the reins and the Covid bubble deflated… that sort of bloodbath spilled over everywhere. Yes, it sucks that so many people at Bars & Kids lost those corporate jobs when big money decided to bring out the knives. I lost my favorite job in journalism the same way, and most of my friends in creative careers like the fine arts, tech, and the restaurant industry have experienced similar misfortune. One guy who was once a cultural attaché in Europe has now finally risen from dishwasher to steward at a nicer bistro. He still has an occasional chat with Jens Stoltenberg about how NATO’s holding up. He doesn’t own any cars.
Do I get steamed that a car salesman is telling me to buy the kind of cars he’s selling? No, not any more than I hate Toucan Sam for pushing Froot Loops. He’s just a cute cartoon character and I don’t eat cereal. Similarly, I can’t afford a collector car now, probably won’t be able to for quite a while, and I’m not mad at anyone for doing well in the market that pushed that aspiration further out of my reach. It was already out of my reach.
You aren’t alone for sure. I felt simuilarilarly about him and my gut has a simulilar record. I’ve never been able to stand him. He did one of his uncomfortable review videos on a mirage close to 10 years ago and showed his true colors. Trashed it up and down then said oh I guess some people want a cheap car with a warranty. That was the first time I saw and heard a mass of people wake up to what he was shoveling.
I was definitely influenced by the negative Mirage video at the time, like it was just cool/correct to hate on cars like that.
…
I’ve been calling Doug DeMuro the Linus Tech Tips of cars, but is he actually the Doug Walker of cars?
I like the LTT analogy. Feel the same about him . I think with both what you see now is what you get. And certain times the veil is down for those or maybe don’t see them. If you have to explain a mirage to someone they are probably out of touch.
Several years ago some of my daughters friends were asking about specific sff PCs or specific cpus that had been out maybe 4 years. I was a bit puzzled but it turned out he was telling kids to buy specific models because of the new hardware situation. But didn’t think oh you know maybe recommend specs or even maybe link to wayback machine enterprise sales or cdw or something so they had some idea. They made $50 computers sell for $300. Funny stuff.
“Guy that runs auction site says buy cars now”
Totally didn’t see that coming.
Articles like this make me feel (slightly) better about overpaying to get my Evo IX this past fall. A 3rd gen Rx7 still occupies the top spot on the bucket list though, maybe in a few years when I buy a daily driver that is actually reasonable.
Had an VIII MR until it got hit. IX’s were the peak.
There is nothing else that peaky and boosty since, other than maybe a Porsche (996) 911 GT2. I STILL mention Evo VIIIs and IXs to track instructors and they’ll STILL start raving over how much they loved them and how nothing has that kind of power delivery anymore. They genuinely were one of the last of their kind!
I knew I wanted one after they consistently kept showing up in lists where the question was something along the lines of “what car do you most regret selling” and it does truly drive like nothing else, the boost, the steering, it’s about as raw as I can imagine a sedan being. Mine is an MR and while the price that I paid wasn’t bad for an Evo IX MR, the mechanical condition has left a bit to be desired. Nothing I can’t handle, but I’m sure it would’ve been handled better by Mitsubishi, you know if the previous owners had just left it alone.
Yep. Back then I intended to keep mine stock save for any reliability mods. That’s all they need.
FD prices are another one that’s been through the roof. I have an FC and would love to add an FD one day, but that ship may have sailed.
As many have pointed out, Doug has every reason to push you to buy now, and no reason not to. But also, bubbles are a thing. My dad talks about it often, but in the late 80s/ early 90s there was a big 50s car pop. 2 seater t birds were practically blue chip investments that kinda just became regular old cars for a bit. Not everything is going to climb value forever, linearly.
Eh, on something like the NSX, you can probably get specialty collector car financing, and as long as you keep it in good shape, it’ll only keep going up in value.
I bought a 997 about 10 years ago and I often look back on that thinking how reckless I was given my situation at the time.
It all worked out, but that same money in the S&P would have netted me way more than the minimal appreciation the car saw (which is mostly wiped out by proper maintenance).
Still, I wouldn’t have enjoyed a 997 for a decade, so I suppose there’s value in that.
While I don’t disagree with Doug’s point that Gen X and Millennial dream cars aren’t getting any cheaper, please don’t try to finance that dream. If you can’t afford to pay cash for a classic car (and it should NOT be your daily driver), plus have a slush fund for ongoing repairs and maintenance, you shouldn’t be buying one.
I did have the same realization last year with my personal dream car: the DeLorean DMC-12. While you used to be able to get decent ones very cheaply, values have been steadily increasing since about 2009. Last year, a sizable bonus at work put one in the realm of possibility without draining my savings, and I knew if I waited too many more years, they would be permanently out of reach.
It’s a project car, and while certain parts were in much better condition than I thought, I’ve found other things I hadn’t accounted for. I also paid a bit below market for the condition it’s in, so if I find myself needing to sell it, I can at least get back what I have into it.
This times ten. Buy responsibly.
I’ve done the “dream car” twice. The second time because the first time I said I’d only sell it if they did a version with X, Y and Z and… damnit, they did.
Both times I did 80% down, but COULD’VE done cash. The first time I wanted to keep X on hand in case life went sideways and turns out it immediately went sideways. Yet I was then better equipped the weather the rough next 5 years.
Thankfully the recent one I was able to have no concerns, and just paid it off in only 14.5 months. Interest was an absolute rounding error, and if life went sideways, I was beyond ready for it.
—
I will say this: The absolute catharsis of being DONE and it being YOURS.
I’ll be twice my age probably before I should sell it. I’ve got decades to enjoy it, so if I’m too busy or life gets in the way, that’s OK. As it’s already there.
Also immense satisfaction of doing it responsibly. I gave up… most everything else fun to make that happen. I still saved for retirement like a financial mutant, I kept frugal, never went on vacation, never ate out, never did a lot of things. I cut everything else to the bone so I could do the one crazy thing, responsibly.
… and goddamn, was it ever worth it!
Yeah, I totally relate to that. My wife has known since we started dating that owning a DeLorean was one of my life goals. Not just a bucket list thing, a singular objective I would make personal (though not relational or family) sacrifices to achieve. The agreement we had was one we’d moved from our “starter” home to our “forever” home, and our kids’ college plans were in a healthy state, I could get one.
That was all well and good until the housing market and interest rates have effectively trapped us in our “starter” home making it look more and more like our “forever” home. My wife also got a new job that affords our kids free college tuition. With those two mitigating factors, my wife let me go for it, but as much as I love the car, my family’s welfare is far more important, and I’d gladly kick it to the curb if it ever became necessary.
Well I didn’t finance but I missed the memo on it not being the daily, whoops!
Well, use your best judgement on that I suppose, and something like an NSX or Supra is going to be more reliable than my DeLorean. I just know wrenching on cars got WAY less stressful for me when I wasn’t relying on said car to get to work the next day.
That’s part of why I daily drive a Mach-E: zero maintenance costs (haven’t paid a penny in service costs in over 4 years of ownership), and it only cost me a few cents a mile to drive, which then frees up cash for the project car.
just so we’re clear, doug demuro is an influencer
He don’t influence me. Because….
THIIIISS is a schtick that wore very quickly.
phil, your quirks!
He has many quirks and few features.
Ugh. I’ve got the money to buy a “dream car,” but not the money to own one.
I miss old Doug. This Doug sucks
This collector car industry as a whole ruined the entire vibe. In the 80’s, old cars were something that you could buy and enjoy with no worry about the market. I remember Wayne Carini said to a guy who just bought a 63 Vette coupe “you’re going to make a lot of money on that car”. How about, congratulations on buying your dream car and enjoy it.
And advice like this is how to start a speculative bubble.
I guess business has been slow (or, not fast enough).
I really enjoyed his content when he had viewers loan them the car for the video, now that he’s rich he’s changed. Money really changes people, and for the worst usually. Of course he wants you to go buy your dream car, and preferably from CarsandBids. It’s business 101. Doug shouldn’t be spouting any sort of financial advice to anyone, I unsubscribed to all of his channels as he is no longer the same passionate car enthusiast we all grew to love him as. Finances are tough for a lot of people, meanwhile the rich are getting more rich by the second with no end in sight. Don’t put yourself into a tough situation because some rich guy on YouTube told you to so he can make a cut of your hard earned money.
Man, one of the things I’m not sure if I can ever bring myself to do is finance a ‘dream’ used car or project. I’d sooner build it up myself from a bare-bones or bottom trim, if at all.
Oh yeah, I was gonna ask if we will see a new article in the future? It’s always interesting reading about your vans, etc. Thanks!
When they respond to my e-mails again .·°՞(¯□¯)՞°·.
Right? Ok, just curious. I enjoyed your articles!
My problem is that my dream car doesn’t exist. I have to design and build it. And I’m far away from having the resources to own my own shop and tools to do so. My dream car would be able to compete on a track with hypercars, while costing almost nothing to own and operate, while minimizing ecological footprint and resource consumption. Screw all these rich assholes who think that sort of performance and fun should be “exclusive” to them. Your 17 year old burger flipper and every Joe Sixpack should have access to it, dammit.
I’m just tired of people spouting “3d printing will change everything!”. It didn’t, it’s just a manufacturing method. Ways to make functional but variable levels of crappiness parts has existed always. It’s just this generations forging or sand casting or arc welding or fiberglass. You can make replacement parts with any of those methods. 3D printing is just the hype flavor and at this point is well past is peak hype.
Hmm… I’m not so sure about the “past peak hype” part. For replicating interior plastics, 3D printing is best combined with modern 3D scanning, which will let you replicate panels and buttons, etc. 1:1 but also let you have the digitized version to make changes/improvements or trim level cope. Plus, ancient dried out 50-years-old polymer science parts can be replaced with modern copolymers or fiber-filled versions.
Though fundamentally I agree with the “x will change everything!” people being full of it. Only hype men say stuff like that; engineers appraise the value of a new process as we make use of it.
Yeah, that take on 3D printing is an odd one. Prior to that it was basically impossible to replace broken or damaged plastic components once they were NLA.
Not true at all, people have been making exact replica urathane parts for decades. Same with 3d scanning, you can pull a physical mold from a part way way cheaper than buying a scanner. These methods have been around, people that restore cars have been doing this stuff forever. I don’t have anything against 3d printing but it’s simply a manufacturing method, nothing more nothing less.
You can’t download a physical mold, and those take time, skill, and material to produce. It also takes different skills to make the most of 3D scanning AFAIK, but they’re different skills that are likely more accessible to many. It also means you can make changes without physically iterating multiple molds, etc.
It was possible to copy parts before, but pretending 3D printing hasn’t been transformative is silly.
Pretending it has been is equally silly.
It can’t be equally silly, because they are contradictory “pretendings”, and one of them is merely “this technology has had a significant effect”. That’s not an extreme claim. You’re making a blanket dismissal without evidence.
You can call it transformative, but after several years consumer-grade plastic printing remains literally rough around the edges. To use paper printers as an analogy, we largely remain stuck in the dot-matrix era, although 3D metal printing somehow seems more like “inkjet” quality. At least 80 percent of the printed plastic objects I’ve seen are clearly identifiable as such, even at a distance. And I used to work someplace that ran a 3D printer all day, although that was a couple years ago. Molding plastic or resin might not seem like an attractive alternative but people ranging from tabletop gamers to dental assistants do it all the time.
I’ll be thrilled when affordable 3D-printed plastic loses its 32-bit aesthetic, but I don’t think we’re there yet.
I don’t think that’s an accurate evaluation, especially if we include different kinds of plastic printing. For things like tabletop miniatures, resin printing is considered better. For functional parts, FDM printers are considered better, and then it’s typically not the goal to make them not look 3D printed.
You made a paper printer comparison, and the point of printed documents isn’t to pass as handwritten. “I can tell that was printed!” They weren’t trying to hide it.
You’d also use different printers or settings if you wanted to print office documents or color photographs, etc. 3D printing can produce wildly different results depending on a variety of factors, and that diversity is part of what makes it significant.
I haven’t owned a 3DS in like 15 years (i keep just borrowing or tactically utilizing them) and the new ones are mind-bogglingly precise for how small they are. I’m about to use one to replicate a windshield pillar trim in the ven, all of which are incredibly crispy and turn to dust the moment you try to unscrew them at this point.
Okay, but now you can 3D-print things with AI. TOTAL game-changer.
I have to admit while I may not be the luckiest SOB on the planet I had fortune smile upon me on my desired car. June 2002 driving in my new home of Brattleboro VT in my Isuzu Amigo which I dearly enjoyed I was thinking I need a 4WD for Winter. At that time what should appear before me but a Proton Yellow Isuzu Vehicross. I had no idea what it was but I needed to check it out. The salesman stayed inside the keys were in the door labeled Proton, I thought that was the name of the car. I was given permission to test drive it solo. I immensely enjoyed it. When the salesman shared the $34,000 sticker I was deflated. He mentioned maybe $28,000. Still way more than I was willing. I said I’d think about it. Went back to work got on this thing called the internet and searched. Even a year out of production hundreds were still available new. Sixty were available for $23,995 but only one available in Black and Yellow. I reached out with this information. Salesman said you need to get it here. I said I got frequent flyer miles and would love the drive in my new car. Well he offered $24,000 just $5 over my offer for pride. I remembered the tank was full so no problem there. He offered $400 on the Amigo I said I’ll buy the car but no trade in. That was 24 years ago, that was 20 years of no car payment and I still enjoy it as a daily driver. When you know you know take the leap or you will regret it.
I mean Doug is a multimillionaire who’s awash in private equity money after laying a bunch of people off, it’s easy for him to say this. Meanwhile I’m in the process of negotiating a promotion at a different company in the hopes of getting a measly 10% raise and title that my current employer can’t afford to give me right now…and I’m comparatively pretty well off and work in a highly specialized field so I know it’s even worse for most people.
Speculative car buying and sites like Cars and Bids are a fucking scourge that are pricing more regular and even well off people out every day. Get off my lawn. I’d rather not have my dream car than have to fuck a bunch of people over feeding the late capitalist hell beast to get it.
It’s so funny that Doug is out here telling everyone to go buy their dream car and throw caution to the wind. Of course he would say that, he profits from it. Meanwhile I’ve been thinking about an Elantra N for months and still don’t think I can stomach the payments.
Preach, brother!!!!
I’d probably beat up people I like for a 10% raise at this point
This is where having some stage-fighting skills come into good use.
Thirty years ago I saw 1980ish Ferrari 308 on a couple of different used car lots, for ~$10,000. Newly married and with a freshly minted kid, of course the wife (rightly) said no. Honestly, we were in no position to afford it.
Fast forward 30 years and now they’re going for 10 to 15 times that, and they’re forever out of reach.
Yes and my mom threw out my #1 Edition of Superman, my Cal Ripken rookie card, and my nude pics of the Queen. You could have wrecked it going home, it may have been shit so count your blessings and every once in awhile when you want something your wife says no too remind her how if she had let you buy the 308 you could be rich, but you don’t blame her.
I don’t blame her a bit. She was right. Had I been single and childless I probably could have swung the purchase, but you’re right – it probably still wouldn’t have been a good idea. The maintenance costs would have bankrupted me.
My intention was similar to what others have posted about here: the notion of “stretch now, before it’s too late” is usually not a smart play.
It isn’t that the car would have made me (or more likely, my kids) rich – it’s that it never was and never will be a dream that could actually happen.
I feel your pain. In the late 80s, someone down the street from my place in a middle-class mixed income neighborhood parked their late 1960s W113 SL (a 280) convertible with the hardtop for sale. It was just enough out of my price range because I had nothing at the time. Now a nice example is well out of what I would spend. Of course if I had bought it, I would have driven it to its last nut and bolt cause I could never aford the upkeep, but I still think about that car,
Says the guy making a profit from every car sold on his auction site.
….after selling it to private equity ghouls and causing a bunch of people to lose their jobs!
I too should start an online car auction platform, sell it to private equity and buy my dream cars that I can’t afford right now
Don’t forget the podcast and YouTube videos. Quirks AND features.
I remember I used to always look forward to the next Letters 2 Doug column on the old jello picnic site, it’s so sad to see how far he’s fallen.
Money ruins people and Father Douglas unfortunately is not an exception
Sayings like that deny people agency and responsibility. Money ruins people who do nothing to stop it from ruining them.
You know what? I agree.
Money ruins people who were already bad but just didn’t have the means for being evil.
Maybe the Autopian needs an auction classified feature, might help finance the upgrades that out $5 a month donation doesn’t cover.
We should all do that.