"Christopher M. Jones" wrote in message ...

That's just plain idiotic. There are cars from 2003 which can
out-perform the average car today. Sheesh. Get a dictionary,
look up the word "tautology". Or do you want to compare Thrust
SST to one of those cars from 1969? Looking to the thread topic,
I see the subject is *cost*, not speed. Shouldn't you be
comparing the "amount of car" you get for a dollar (inflation
adjusted, of course) now vs. in the 1800s? I would bet that
it's quite a bit more now than then.

Oh, and I suppose they had gas-electric hybrids for sale in
1899 right? With airbags. And air conditioning. And power
steering. And anti-lock brakes. And 50 mpg gas mileage.

I've seen some of the NCAP crash tests. Two years ago the Citroen C5
was the first car to get 5 stars. Now a dozen cars have five stars,
and if your car is over 5 years old, it's probably a deathtrap
compared to today's cars. The improvement, as you point out, is
amazing.