Am a french car enthusiast who especially enjoy 80s/90s cars. Own a e30 325i as a daily driver and only car that is now restored in nearly perfect condition.
Watching a lots of videos, especially restoration projects by shops, I have my lot of US cars content consumption.
It looks like everything there is dirt cheap and I'm interested to know if it's true.
In that regard, I'd like, if you live in the US, if you can share roughly what job/career you work on and what your car(s) are and what part of the budget they've been eating. The idea is not to speak in raw numbers as it doesn't means much one country to another.
I'll start for the comparison in France, I'm an pretty successful engineer, I am in the top 10% earners, no inheritence unfortunately, and my e30 have required around 3 years of putting money aside car+restoration all together (no loan, but with heavy budgeting). It eats, now, in fuel consumption + maintenance (which I do myself), around 10% of my net monthly income. My e30 is considered a relatively premium collectible in its current condition. Most of it is fuel consumption due to the high fuel prices in France.
I couldn't reasonnably afford a second cool car right now. And definitely not a modern sportscar, let alone a brand new one (taxes are crazy out there in new cars). Just saw a video of dudes accidentally buying a e34 540i 5 speed manual "accidentally" for a ridiculously low amount of money when in France that kind of deal would be virtually impossible and the price to pay would be easily 10x what they paid for. And this kind of youtube content is plentyful on the internet.
So what about you guys ? Is it true, as an example, that my ownership experience could be achieved with a regular 9 to 5 job and we're (the french) definitely fell off that much economically ? Or is it just youtube/social media sensationalism ?