<VV> RE: Was '54 Corvette, now "Value Analysis'

[Craig Nicol]

In a prior life, I worked at Honda R&D; one of our jobs was "value
analysis"; that is comparing two cars to see which one was the better value.


This Corvette comparison ('54 to '07) stretches the concept to the limit.
Someone posted the value of a 1957 house and a 1957 salary. Those are good
thoughts.  What we used to do (as a first cut) was to calculate the number
of weeks of the average salary it would take to buy the car.  A second layer
would be to "level" the two cars by subtracting or adding the market value
of each option or feature until the cars were more or less equivalent.
Options and hardware features are pretty easy but after that it gets pretty
tricky - how do you value 3 or 4 times the durability?  How do you value
1/10th as likely to kill you or <1% of the emissions?

Without having looked at any of the real numbers or equalizing for equipment
and features, I'd say that the '07 Corvette is less affordable.  The '54
would be paid-for in about 1/2 year of the average '54 salary where the '07
might be a little more than a full year of the average '07 salary.  If one
were to equalize for equipment, it might be closer to a wash.  I would get
really interesting if you factored in the total ownership costs including
maintenance, depreciation, and insurance. A complete analysis would be a
whole day's job.

Craig (numbers make me happy!) Nicol