Jesse Singer articles

Buy a new car today and there are plenty of features you simply assume will be there. You probably wouldn’t even think to ask about them. But when Baby Boomers were buying new cars, many of those same features could send the price climbing one option box at a time. Remember?

Some cars become valuable because they were beautiful. Others become valuable because they were fast. This Plymouth had both covered, yet that still doesn’t explain why someone paid $3.3 million for it. The real answer begins with a production number almost too small to believe.

Some cars earn a reputation for being almost impossible to wear out. Owners brag about them, mechanics recommend them, and used buyers hunt them down. Then one expensive problem starts showing up again and again. Suddenly, that “last forever” reputation comes with a very big asterisk.

A shared garage can make boundaries fuzzy fast. One neighbor sees an outlet beside both parking spaces and thinks it is there for everyone. The other sees an EV plugged into it for hours and starts wondering exactly whose electric bill is filling that battery. So who is actually paying?

Living near a school has its perks. Twice-a-day traffic jams are not one of them. Every morning and afternoon, parents stop wherever they can squeeze their SUVs, and sometimes that means directly in front of someone else’s driveway. After enough blocked entrances, putting up a homemade “No Parking” sign starts to feel pretty reasonable. It’s their property, after all...right?

There are cars you buy because they’re practical, and then there are cars you remember seeing once in a parking lot 50 years ago.

Most of us start getting nervous when the odometer creeps past 150,000 miles. These owners apparently saw that number and thought, “that's a nice start.”

Naming a car seems easy until you remember that thousands of people have to walk into dealerships and say the name out loud with a straight face. A few of these are so bad they make you wonder whether the meeting ended because everyone agreed...or because it was lunchtime.

The neighbor leaves for work every morning. His EV charger stays behind. So if someone nearby needs a little extra range and the charger is just sitting there...what’s the harm in plugging in for a while? The answer depends on more than whether the homeowner notices.