Inside the Downtown NYC Cult of the Beater Automobile

Safety concerns notwithstanding, Jospé is one of a growing number of citybound millennials who have whole-heartedly embraced the beater car lifestyle. The draw is partly economic, partly philosophical. Thanks in part to a global semiconductor chip shortage, the price of used cars rose 40% from 2021 to 2022. The gasoline to fill them has approached record high levels, too. And if you can afford a new car, your choices are basically limited to boat-sized SUVs, unoffensive hybrids, and soon-to-be-autonomous electric vehicles, any single one of which looks basically like all the other ones. To the extent that America has a… Read Full Article