For the first decade or so of my adult life I drove well used VW Bugs; they were affordable and easily repaired. With one of them I needed to fix the hand brake. The part needed was a release button which screwed into the brake handle. The parts man at the VW dealership informed me that they couldn’t sell me just the button; I would need to buy the complete hand brake assembly at a cost of $128. How do I remember an exact figure from forty years past? Because $128 was my weekly net pay from my teaching job. What a stupid waste of money and material.
Fast forward-last month I needed to replace the middle section of a three piece front bumper on a 1958 MGA. Moss Motors, the largest supplier in this country of replacement parts for British cars would not sell me just the center section. I had to buy all three sections. What a stupid waste of money and material. So, in almost half a century not much has changed. TZ