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These days cars are more reliable and so students/artists are much more likely to buy a used car.

In the 1970s getting 100,000 miles on a car gave you bragging rights - you would invite your friends to see it turn over, driving away in a cloud of blue smoke (engine oil burns blue), and carefully avoid puddles since they would splash water through the holes in the floor.

These days cars go a lot longer before they fail and so people with limited money buy used cars.

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People with enough money to afford new also buy used cars. Why take the depreciation hit when someone else can do it, and you can still get 10+ years out of the car.
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Just because you could afford new doesn't mean you will of course.
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There's more to it than "sell a bunch"

The best selling car of the 90s was consistently a Taurus and yet everyone who grew up riding around in one or learned to drive in one or had one as a first car in the 00s is nostalgic for whatever Toyota product their rich AF friend's stock broker/surgeon dad was driving around then.

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There are iconic expensive cars e.g. Jaguar E-type, Aston Martin DB5 and very expensive e.g. Rolls Royce Shadow.
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