Trade a '56 Chevy for a '25 Tesla?

What it cost to buy a Chevy Bel Air in 1956 buys you a Tesla Model Y today.

My first car was a 1956 Chevy Bel Air. Back then, you could buy a brand-new one with the base V-8 engine for around $2,443. Even with factory options and accessories, it typically stayed under $3,000. In 1956, the average blue-collar worker earned about $2.16 an hour in wages and benefits, meaning a fully loaded Bel Air would cost roughly 1,389 hours of time.

Fast forward to 2025 and blue-collar compensation is around $37.15 an hour. At that rate, the equivalent money price of the Bel Air would be about $51,600—roughly the price of a new Tesla Model Y, currently the most popular car in the U.S.

So here’s the question: how many 1956 Chevys would I have to give you in exchange for your 2025 Tesla?

Having personally experienced both, I wouldn’t trade a single Tesla for a thousand Bel Airs. As iconic as the ‘56 Chevy is, it simply doesn’t compare to what a Tesla delivers. In fact, if someone offered me a brand-new ‘56 Chevy today, I’d consider it more of a liability than an asset. The Tesla far surpasses the old Chevy in every category: reliability, safety, comfort, efficiency, and especially maintenance. And nothing even comes close to the magic of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving feature.

I loved my Bel Air back in high school—cruising with friends, hitting the drive-in theater—it’s a great memory. But that’s all it is: nostalgia. After driving a Tesla, I know I could never go back.

Learn more about our infinitely bountiful planet at superabundance.com. We explain and give hundreds of examples why more people with freedom means much more resource abundances for everyone in our book, Superabundance, available at Amazon.

Gale Pooley is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, and a board member at Human Progress.

You can now book Gale to speak about Superabundance and the new economics of human flourishing to your organization at All American Speakers.