Write Your Congressman: Defend the Car a Wage Can Still Buy
One vehicle this week held its price at last year's number. Another arrived with no price a working person will ever hear. A country should still be able to buy the car in between.
To the Honorable Member of Congress:
We write on behalf of the car a wage can still buy.
Consider two machines set before us on the same day. In Camden, Subaru announced that its all-electric Trailseeker will start at $39,995, which the company notes is the same as the outgoing model. Hold that number. In a market where every sticker climbs, a maker looked at last year's figure and did not raise it. Subaru credits the car with pace it calls the quickest it has ever sold here; the boast belongs to Subaru, and we let it stand where they put it. Our concern is the humbler figure beneath it: a working person can read this price, do the arithmetic, and know where they stand.
At the other end of the day sits a Rolls-Royce Phantom Regatta, a one-of-one commission built by hand at Goodwood. It is a lovely object and we begrudge it nothing. But it carries no price at all, and none was ever meant for you. It is not sold to a driver. It is granted to a portfolio.
We name no bill, because none is needed to see the drift. We ask only that the republic keep the middle within reach: the honest, plain car priced for a person, the one that costs this year what it cost last year and does not apologize for it. Defend the car a wage can still buy, before the only choices left are a subscription and a yacht. Write back to us when you have.
Respectfully, The Editors