The total yearly tab for riding a car? $18,000 not counting gas, registration fees, maintenance.

Now let's see his expenses without a car:

Annual unlimited subway rides instead: $972.00

My partner likes to drive out to his place in the Hamptons three or four times during the summer. Four limo rides times two from the Hamptons and back would cost less than $3,000 annually.

Owning a car costs my partner $14,000 a year more than not owning one. He has done this for the past 15 years. Vanity so far has cost him more than $300,000 had he put the money instead into an interest-bearing savings account.

For a less extreme example; take my daughter-in-law - please. OK, seriously now: My daughter-in-law has a car she does not need because she likes to go shopping once in a while. She lives 3 blocks from her place of employment but insists she needs to drive to work. No, she is not handicapped and yes, she could use the exercise. She could save almost $6,000 a year by not having a car. The few times a month she goes shopping she could rent a car for the day and still come out ahead. As for grocery shopping, the supermarket will deliver almost everything she needs for a modest $5.00 delivery charge. Even having groceries delivered every single day of the year is still cheaper than owning a car. Using a taxi twice weekly, keeping it waiting while you shop and having it drop you back home is still cheaper than owning a car.

One of the greatest impediments to the accumulation of wealth in this country is the unnecessary ownership of a car.

But for the sake of the game, let's consider Francis' question. The answer for me is easy because I already owned a car for more than ten years that served me quite well, a 1989 Honda Civic. I recently bought a 2008 Nissan Versa which purchase I chronicled in my article My Old Car Finally Died. Interestingly, as if in anticipation of Francis' conditions, one of the reasons I chose the Versa was in fact because, "I intend on keeping the car for at least ten years."

I certainly would never choose an American, Union-made car. It would be a like a Jew in 1933 contributing to the Nazi party; it only encourages more evil. There never existed a group more dedicated to short-term greed at the expense of the rest of the country than American Unions. One by one, as they destroyed industry after industry, they still scratched their tiny noggins and wondered how that could have happened.

But back to the Versa. Almost any foreign car with good gas mileage and low maintenance costs would work for me. As I mentioned above I had a tiny, 1989 Honda Civic for more than ten years. I'm sure the Versa will last more than ten years while costing me very little to operate it so the only reason I would get rid of it in ten years is to get improved safety features that were developed during the years I owned it. If I had very little money to buy a car I'd buy a 1989 Honda Civic or barring that any cheap non-American car. Of course, the fact that it's not American already makes it cheap.

I could afford a much more expensive car; truth be told I can afford a Rolls Royce. But to what purpose? I don't need to impress anyone nor am I in the business of selling snake-oil or pushing penny-stocks. The Versa is comfortable, has all the safety features I need, is low maintenance, gets good gas milage, and is easy to park. I can leave it in a parking garage without worrying if it gets damaged. If it does get a dent, I won't fix it because I am not that vain. I don't care what others think, I care for the money I save to spend on things that give me joy. A smile on a loved one's face is worth more to me than a garage full of classic cars.

What circumstances might change my choice of car? My two boys, my two daughters-in-law and my two granddaughters live with my wife and me. If everyone got rid of their cars and I was left as the only driver I would get a conversion van. I had one back when my two boys were twenty years younger and we would drive to Disney World in the summer or locally to the movies, to the Jersey shore, to relatives for the holidays. It had plush comfortable seating for long trips, plenty of luggage space, and a VHS player to keep the kids occupied during long trips.

Certainly if I retired I wouldn't mind tooling around in a Segway which I found quite convenient to ride around in Manhattan.

Notes

(1):

Eternity Road, A Little Auto Eroticism

Herewith, a survey of three questions:

1. Michael Anthony (if you're too young to remember the old TV show The Millionaire, look it up) has come to your home and offered to buy you the car of your choice, no matter what that car might be or cost. But there are conditions:
   
   
   • It has to be in current production;
   
   
   • You have to foot all running and maintenance expenses;
   
   
   • It will be the only car you'll get to drive or use in any way for the next ten years, no matter what happens, where you might need to go, or why.
   
   What would your choice be?


2. Defend that choice, with specific reference to your circumstances -- and remember that you're not allowed the use of any other car, including that of your spouse if you have one.


3. Now describe a set of circumstances you could plausibly face in which, no matter how carefully you chose your new car, you'd rather have some other car for those conditions.