What are you comparing it to? In contrary, German cars in the US are expensive. My co-workers in the US would not believe that in Europe a German car such as BMW or Mercedes is commonly the first car of many young men have.

I'm not sure it's that common to have as a first car is it?

Not a new one of course, but the ones in the 2000€ price range. Those do come with problems, but my friends were eager to fix them. Still, from around dozen of my friends who did purchase a car after getting a license, around ten ended up buying BMW, VW or Mercedes. As far as I can tell the reason was availability of replacement parts.

Germany is not some mythical land of cheap fast cars. We have the same 10 year old 3 series with 80k miles on the clock for $5000 here, too. But maybe we just are also aware that the most expensive German car in the world is a cheap one.

> What are you comparing it to?

List price.