ALTRAV,

"Where-as the old 48'FX retailed for around $1,500 in today's money."

Which is utter bull L750/-/- in 1948 was two year's wages, $1500 in today's money is less than a week's average wages and less than 4 weeks Aged Pension.

One pound equalled two dollars for a brief period in 1966 but the uneducated still use the outdated formula L1=$2.
See:
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/80807419
http://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/whatitcost/earnings

Issy I don't need to.
You have used the wrong figures.
For example according to the link I supplied, the basic wage is not over $1,000 a week, it's more like $740 a week.
You can check for yourself.
And what's this about the FX was not an FX?
It's a matter of record/history, we have always called it an FX, and the next model was called FJ.
So if your referring to the model ID defined by GM, yes, but we, the public only ever knew it as, and referred to it as, an FX.
Your reference of 48-215 was internal coding for the year of manufacture and the size of the engine in cubic inches.

Correction: I said $740 a week, that is today's basic wage.
Back then it was more like $18 per week, probably more by 1948.
With loading, I found it was probably more like just over $20 per week when adjusted for matching pay scales of today.
The info is very detailed and one needs to be some kind of wiz to get an accurate figure based on 1948 pay scales.

Have you guys ever heard of disposable income in the context of income remaining after all necessities are provided, the concept of needs and wants and affordability. Simply trying to calculate what something costs in weeks of income is misleading. A car at $1000 for a person with an income of $10 week does not cost 100 weeks its simply beyond reach. A person with an income of $10,000/week could possible purchase a $10,000 car with disposable income of $5,000 after necessities in 2 weeks

disposable income in the context of income
Paul1405,
i'm totally with you on this one !

A Holden car (regardless of the model designation) cost L750/-/- in 1948 and that equalled two years wages.
As the basic wage was around L7/-/- per week that's two years wages or 4,160 h0urs worked.
Today with an hourly rate of around $19/hour that means the Holden of 1948 cost about $79,000, not cheap even at half the price.

Comparison of costs over periods of time needs to be calculated on constants, disposable income is not a constant.