new car depreciation... unexpectedly, I was surprised to learn there are 2 ways to perceive it. Dollars, and percents. How much a brand loses value in, say, 5 years... or, how much a percent of the purchase cost it loses.

This chart in Car and Driver was cool to take a look at. The very next issue, a subscriber brought up a brilliant observation in the letters to the editor.

looking at any one make and model, say the Rolls Royce Phantom, which loses X number of dollars, maybe it's $200,000 in 5 years.

Seems bad.

Then they pointed out that though a Mustang or Camaro loses only 15 or 20 thou in those same years, it loses the same percent of the purchase price. Remember, I'm just using examples that have nothing accurate about them... to point out the luxury level millionaire stuff, vs the more common sporty car stuff, was all the reader was talking about.

I was, however, surprised to read that the examples the reader chose (not the ones I just did above) were nearly identical losses, in terms of the percent of original sales price the vehicles depreciated.

Food for thought.