There have been numerous affordable cars throughout the years that have proven their worth against some of the biggest performance brands in history. These cars have shown to be more usable, more reliable, and even more fun than the exotics we put on our bedroom walls. These are the cars that showed people that cars could be more than show pieces. They proved that cars could be fun for anyone. But if you ask me, both the affordability and the fun of these cars seems to be slowly slipping away. With that goes usability, then demand, and so on. So let's find out if these cars really are losing their appeal as affordable fun.

These kinds of cars were pioneered mainly by the United States and Japan. In fact, the very idea of making cars cheaper was executed and pioneered by Henry Ford himself. You probably know that story. But before he started making cars affordable for the common people, cars were more of a rich man's way of flaunting his wealth. Because of this and the fact that an assembly line had not yet been used to mass produce cars, there weren't very many to go around in the first place. It was the same kind of situation with fast cars soon after. High speed was only reserved for racing and record breaking. After World War II, however, people started becoming interested in the potential of their standard road-going machines. Pretty soon, major manufacturers caught on, and people started getting faster cars right out of the factory. This, at first, was also a matter of how wealthy one was. The more money people had, the faster the cars were that they could afford. This era was dominated by the likes of Porsche, Jaguar, Mercedes, and many more European manufacturers we still recognize today as creators of outrageous and, in many cases, very expensive cars. This all started to change in the following couple decades, though, as manufacturers like Ford, General Motors, Dodge, Honda, Mazda, Datsun (now Nissan), and many other American and Japanese brands began to make their mark on what fast cars could be.

These companies from opposite sides of the world seemed to share the same idea; make fun cars available to more people. Sounds like an excellent business strategy. And it was for quite a long time. But now it seems like we live in a time when cars have reached their maximum potential. 0-60 mph in 6 seconds seems pretty slow, and the 4-second range is standard at best. We hear all the time of cars that can reach 60 mph in under 3 seconds and it doesn't surprise us anymore. It was only 30 years ago that the Ferrari F40 became the first production car to reach 200 mph. Now there's a battle to see who can get to 300. Cars just don't seem to make people wonder anymore. We seem to want the fastest car with the biggest name. Not the one that's going to give us the most enjoyable driving experience. Don't get me wrong. I think it's fantastic that a street legal car will soon be able to reach pretty close to the top speed of a C-130, but there's going to be a point that cars simply won't surpass. This is why people need to understand that an absurdly fast car is not the best thing in the world. A fun car is one that keeps you engaged while you drive it. It's a car that you're not afraid of paying for when you spin out on the track and bend an axle. It's a car that you intend to keep for a long time because there's nothing else you would rather drive. These are the cars that were built by the manufacturers mentioned above so that everyone could have a good time behind the wheel.

I think this is why these cars have started to lose their original appeal. Manufacturers have only ever tried to give people what they want. Right now, most people seem to want front-wheel-drive hatchbacks with performance that is pathetic at best, leaving the pure-blooded enthusiasts with the scraps and shadows of what used to be. Real performance has fallen in demand, and therefore comes at a higher price. Of course, many of these manufacturers have taken these hatchbacks that people want, and made versions of them that are, in fact, fun to drive. There's the Honda Civic Type R, Renault Megane R.S., Ford Focus RS, and a lot more. But these are often much more expensive than their less-than-interesting counterparts. A base 2019 Honda Civic is at a fair price of about $20,000. But a Civic Type R reaches to $36,000 as a start. That's almost in the range of a V8-powered Camaro Super Sport which, in my opinion, is also a bit overpriced. Granted, a new Camaro SS is way better than an older one in terms of performance and safety. But the performance of a Camaro SS in 1969 was the standard of the day, and it cost up to $3800. That's roughly $26,000 in today's money; about the price of a turbocharged 4-cylinder Camaro with 100 less horsepower and even less torque. The V8 that people used to love is now a luxury item. If you like the 4-cylinder, that's fine. It does make for a very good-handling car. But that's besides the point I'm trying to make.

Many modern performance cars try to compete with the performance of exotics. In doing so, they ignore what was wanted from them in the first place; the ability to affordably have a fun time driving. The Corvette is another example of this. It focuses on all-out performance, and it does do a good job at this. But it is very drive-by-the-wire, meaning it takes a highly skilled professional driver to be able to handle it at its best without the use of all of the technology on-board that may be limiting the car's ability in trying to ensure that it doesn't oversteer and spin out at every turn. In short, it's not exactly a fun car to drive for most people if they don't use the technology on-board, which is a major factor in driving up the price. We'll have to see if any of this changes at all with the new C8. The Nissan GT-R is quite the opposite. It has excellent and predictable handling due to it's all-wheel-drive system, aerodynamics, and light-weight twin-turbo V6 engine. But even in this car, the price has gone up from 5 figures to 6. Very little has been done to it since its introduction a little over a decade ago aside from technological changes and a slight increase in performance. Why did the price increase so much from some minor updates? I don't know. A possible cause is declining sales due to its lack of revision, but this is literally the most common supercar I see on the road. But it is definitely not an outstanding car anymore. The GT-R R35 was a superior performer from the start. Nothing could match it in its price range a decade ago. But, as stated before, not much improvement has been made to it since then.

So, as you can see, there are many cars that are losing or have lost their appeal as fun and affordable, some of them for no reason at all. Even so, there are still a lot of cars that haven't or are making a comeback. A lot of cars reach the performance standard of today just as they did when they were first built and have seen little to no change in price. These cars can be used as examples of what can be done to make the cars enthusiasts want at the prices they can work with. The 2020 Camaro is set to be introduced with an updated front end as well as a new trim level called the LT1. The LT1 is the name of the engine currently used in the Camaro SS. The difference between this new trim and the SS, however, is that the LT1 trim will start at around $31,000 because it's essentially a Camaro RS with a V8. That means we'll have the V8 performance we've been craving for quite a bit less than the price of that Civic Type R and the now luxurious Camaro Super Sport. Chevy seems to be doing a lot of this lately given the fact that we've just recently been introduced to a new base Corvette with the engine in the middle that can hit 60 mph in under 3 seconds at less than $60,000. At that price, less-than-3-second 0 to 60 times suddenly don't seem so commonplace. That's also only about $4000 more than the base Corvette of the previous generation.

Another car that shows a very healthy lack of price changes since its introduction is the Mazda MX-5 Miata. It cost about $14,000 when it was introduced in 1989, and it cost about $26,000 now. You might be thinking that that's not the same price, but if you look at 1989 dollars vs. 2019 dollars, it's pretty much the same price. And the car has only gotten better. It's the same story with the Nissan 370Z too. Although, I've heard that that thing is not a safe car to drive. But that's besides the point. The point is that there are cars out there that have done the same things or even done better things than when they were introduced and have remained at the same price through the decades. Why can't more cars do this?

Probably because a lot of the cars that followed these principles aren't around anymore. The ones that are still around are few and far between. So how do we get the cars we have to keep doing what they were originally supposed to do? For starters, maybe we shouldn't focus so much on luxury and comfort. A lot of the technology that goes into our cars like touch screens and sensors are what is making these cars more expensive in the first place. I personally do not need a 12-inch touch screen to play music in the car. I prefer buttons anyway. I don't need to pay for an on-board GPS service either because I have a phone that already does that. Just get one of those holders that sticks to the windshield or sits in your cup holder. Use manually adjustable seats as standard that are lined with cloth instead of leather. Bring back non-powered windows. All of these things just add weight anyways. Teach people how to drive with a manual transmission at the DMV. Manual transmissions are cheaper and really are not that hard to work with. They're a lot more fun and engaging too, given some practice. So what if they're not as fast as automatics? And again, more weight. Automatics tend to weigh more than manuals. There is so much that can be done to put the cars on our bedroom walls into our grasp. Yes, a lot of cars are more expensive than they used to be. And with the higher price comes less usability which means less fun. But the ones that aren't have shown us that it's possible to have a fast and fun car that's affordable. So maybe there's a chance that we don't have to be stuck in those boring, base-level hatchbacks. I would like to think so, and I think a lot of other people would too.

But if there isn't a chance, then just modify that thing until it fits what you want in a car, because no one else will. There's no hope at that point.