29 Surprisingly Affordable Muscle Cars
From the '60s through today, these cars offer brawn on a budget.
Mercedes-Benz AMG E 63 S
- Year: 2020
- Style: AMG E 63 S 4dr Sedan AWD (4.0L 8cyl Turbo 9A)
- Total cash price: $120,288
- True cost to own for five years: $142,602
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Methodology: GOBankingRates looked at various auto publications, from CarMax to MotorTrend, in order to find examples of contemporary and historically popular “muscle cars” that were surprisingly affordable. From these lists, GOBankingRates used the Edmunds Inc. True Cost to Own pricing calculator for all contemporary models (2014 and after) to find the (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. To be deemed affordable, the total cash price of each muscle car had to come in below the average cost of a new vehicle purchase for the month of May 2020, as sourced from Kelley Blue Book, or it had to 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 No. 2-8 were then added to give (9) five-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 was collected on and is up to date as of June 1, 2020.
Photo Disclaimer: Please note some photos are for representative purposes only and might not feature exact models, base models or the cars’ specific trim levels. As a result, some of the cars in the photos might have different MSRPs than the ones listed in this article.
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