23 Surprisingly Affordable Muscle Cars
From the '60s through today, these cars offer brawn on a budget.
Lexus GS F
- Year: 2020
- Style: 4dr sedan (5.0L 8cyl 8A)
- Total cash price: $91,556
- True cost to own for five years: $101,937
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Methodology: GOBankingRates, in order to find surprisingly affordable muscle cars, looked at various auto publications from CarMax to MotorTrend to find examples of both contemporary and historically popular "muscle cars."
From these lists, GOBankingRates used the Edmunds Inc. True Cost to Own pricing calculator for all contemporary models (2015 and after) to find (1) Total Cash Price, which is the vehicle's True Market Value® (TMV®) price plus any typically equipped options, destination charge, base tax, fees assessed by your state and, if applicable, gas guzzler tax. For all historically popular muscle cars, GOBankingRates found cars listed for auction/sale on Hemmings.com and used sale price or final bid price for its Total Cash Price.
In order to be deemed affordable, each muscle car had to either come in below the average cost of a new vehicle purchase for the month of February 2021 as sourced from Kelley Blue Book or come in below the average cost of a new vehicle from its manufacturer, also sourced from Kelley Blue Book. For all contemporary muscle cars, GOBankingRates also found the five-year totals for (2) depreciation, (3) taxes and fees, (4) financing, (5) fuel costs, (6) insurance, (7) maintenance and (8) repairs. Factors (2-8) were then added to give (9) 5-year true cost to own. Depreciation costs were shown for each year while the remaining factors were only given five-year totals. GOBankingRates kept the location for the calculations constant, using the ZIP code 90245 (El Segundo, California).
The Edmunds Inc. True Cost to Own calculations use the following assumptions: -You will drive 15,000 miles per year -You are financing the vehicle using traditional financing, not lease financing -You have an above-average credit rating for the purpose of determining your finance rate -You are making a 10% down payment on the vehicle at purchase All data were collected on and up to date as of April 6, 2021.
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