i'm spoiled. i had more new cars in my first 35 years of life than mom had in her entire 75 years of life. the ol'man always taught me that a car was just a vehicle to get from point a to point b. but he probably never felt that way about his boats. mom bought a new car maybe once every 10 years or whenever the old car started becoming a hassle with repairs.
but i've gone through new cars like toilet paper, having had company cars from college until just a few years ago. for the last three cars on my own, i got an almost new yellow mustang convertible (was a repo with about 3k mi on it) at just a few bucks over its wholesale auction price through a friend of a friend. then i had a t-bird on a ford-subsidized lease, a seriously good price which an industry employed friend had told me about.
since college, i've never had a car that was more than two or three years old. but at least i can say that i didn't buy my first new car until i was 50, so that story can spin either way. i might be taking a bath on the current stang vertible gt. i bought it thinking it would be a five-year car for fun roadtrips before taking off and vagabonding sans car for quite a few years, but since then my net worth has tanked and my tank is, well, how's your tank? still, very fun to speed around town, and i'm just doing more local trips instead of cross-country ones. not sure how this is going to play out but i might sell it, cutting my rather large loss if & when i get rid of these houses or i might settle someplace cheaper for a while and continue with some roadtrips before heading offshore.
had i known i wouldn't get the use (which i planned for) out of this new car when i bought it, well, as is said, i would have made a whole different set of mistakes.