I was at a trade show in Vegas in 2000 or 2001. That's back when the Imperial Palace still had a "car museum" in their penthouse; it had been a Duesenberg museum and was in the process of converting to a used car lot before the whole thing went away. Up at the top, tucked into a corner, forgotten and ignored, was a Lancia Stratos. This Lancia Stratos. I think they wanted $30k for it, but they said they'd take $25k. Which was definitely more than I could afford, and substantially less than the $475k it went for in 2018, and substantially less than the $1.5m several models went for in 2003-2006. A $25k car bought in 2002 and sold for $475k in 2018 would be a 19x appreciation factor. That used to bug me a bit. Then I bought Ethereum at Frontier and decided that regret never gets you anything. My auto shop teacher had a 1931 Mach 1 with the Boss 429 Hemi in it. It sat there rusting away, year after year. He drove it every day but never did anything about the salt damage. Still breaks my heart.
Why did you have to remind me that this awesome website exists? It fills me with "wants" and "gimmes" and nothing even extreme. I mean, look, at less than $2,000 currently, I really, really want this Toyota Tercel. Dala, baby, this car will fix 2020 for us, I just know it.
The cars I lusted for and couldn't afford, contemporaneously, were modest. A friend's little sister was straight up gifted a Subaru XT Coupe at sixteen while I was running carbs through the dishwasher to try and get my donor RX-4 running. We used to haunt the car lots because it was something to do and there was just something about the perpetually-unattainable Mazda MX3. DOHC 1.8L V6, y'all. A kid showed up at college. His dad had bought him one for graduation. He was a nice enough guy but forever a spoiled brat in my eyes. Another kid in school had a family tradition where Grandma and Grandpa gave them $15k towards the car of their choice the minute they turned 16. I had very carefully calculated that to be more than enough money to buy a 1982 Lotus Esprit and put a Rover/Buick 215ci V8 in it with either a Porsche or ZF transaxle. Fucker bought a Prelude. I drove a '77 Buick that I had purchased for $125 because its oil seal was leaking. Ended up fixing the oil leak and driving the fucking thing because the car the mill was supposed to go into took a whole lot longer without the promised parental support. Another buddy got a cherry '67 Camaro that he wrapped around a lamppost within a month while racing his buddy with the '67 Mustang Fastback that he wrapped around the same lamppost a month later, rebuilt, and wrapped around a different lamppost six months later. Meanwhile the TR-7 I spent forever fixing was eclipsed by a different kid whose dad gave him a choice between an '81 TR8 convertible or a '74 Elan. TR8 was dead in eight months, so he also got the Elan. I probably drive a Porsche convertible to avenge my high school self. I doubt I'm the only one.