(buy and sell my sorry a$$???) oookay

I’m following your strategy, and have been for years. Because of this, I will be purchasing a new CTS-V next fall, while a bunch of suckers will wish they could afford one, or one of these Lexus models that won’t happen.

The other thing I tend to do is buy my cars new, fully loaded with every option I want, and keep them for a long time. Cars are one of the worst depreciating assets you can buy. Trade them in every 3-5 years, and you’re eating most of the depreciation. Keep them for 10 years however, and you get the most for your money. If you buy a nice car, fully loaded, chances are it will still be a nice car 8 years later, and you won’t be bored with it if you choose wisely and get options that you will wish your car had later (i.e. if I bought a base model Corvette, I would always wish I had a Z06).

My ‘02 Z06 is a perfect example. It’s 6 years old now, yet it still thrills me, and its capabilities still exceed my driving skills. And I still get tons of compliments on it (I don’t buy cars to receive compliments, but its still nice anyway). Bottom line, I’m not even close to be being bored with the car yet, and I plan to keep it for 4 more years, 10 total, before upgrading to a new C7 Corvette (if I like it). Amortizing a $50k car over 10 years works out to $5k per year – not bad. And that’s assuming it will be worth $0 in 4 years, which of course won’t be the case – it’ll probably be worth at least $10k by then. In those 10 years, I save quite a bit of money that would otherwise be paying for new car depreciation, or lease payments, and then I can use that saved money to buy something even nicer next time I buy.

The CTS-V I purchase will be another 10 year hold, if I like the car, which I’m sure I will.

I thought I would be living large – for the last year I’ve been looking at Cayennes and Range Rover Sports and BEnz CLSs, but then something clicked a month or two ago. I’ve seen that paradigm all too many times, the douchebag with the foreclosed home and the leased luxury car…. So I’ve gone the other extreme – BROWN BAGGING my lunch and comparing pasta prices at the supermarket!!!!! LOL! I didn’t even do this when I was a student making $200 a week at my part time job!!!!!!

And this move by Lexus is just stupid… or really smart. I don’t think they’re doing this because they need to, but because of how it makes them look. Lexus could easily sell performance models (there will always be a demand for performance vehicles), but their demographic is probably largely made up of faux-environmentalists, and Lexus knows it can sell more cars if it appears to be as green as possible. Sadly, part of that is killing performance models.

And how many idiots are really going to pay $100k+ to drive a Toyota with a “L” in the grill? I’m sure the thing will be awesome in many respects but I find it interesting that Toyota’s engineers STILL can’t match GM and Nissan at the track with their “super car”. How many more LF-A stories do we have to read before the thing comes out anyway?

Now they are back down to a bit of reality, and blame Bush for ending their pipedreams. Best way to avoid these issues is to never live above your means and don’t even live at your mean; live below them and invest the difference, wisely. That way you don’t end up like a freakin loser with an Armani suit, a foreclosure sign in front of your house, and a repo’d mass-luxury idiotmobile.