The Joy of New - Some Complicated Feelings About New Cars (And Other Stuff)

By Jeff Sun – Posted on January 26, 2026

Recently, as I've taken stock of the wide range of old things that surround me, I've been contemplating whether there might be joy to be found in new things. To be sure, I live in a culture that continually elevates new over old. To prove this point, as we will soon get to, some of the most profoundly performative exhibitions of joy in popular culture are related to things that are "new". I, on the other hand, am not automatically on board with the idea of new being generally better than old. While some of that feeling can simply be chalked up to my having reached a solidly curmudgeonly age, parts of my perspective go back many years to formative experiences rooted in adolescence.

But you probably already knew that.

My recent contemplation on the Joy of New came during a morning where my 15 year old dishwasher once again decided to eject its upper basket spray arm.

This was the same morning where I spent time locating two properly-sized sheet metal screws - one of which turned out to be a left over license-plate attaching screw. The other had to be larger and therefore involved a trip to the hardware store. Both screws were required to attach the upper heating element to the top of the oven. The original hardware had departed after 20 years of daily service, leaving two different-sized holes into which I must insert two different-sized screws.

All of this provided me with a sudden reflection along the lines of "Geeze, I guess I know why some people appreciate just having new things. And I'll bet those are the people who replace their old stuff before it becomes necessary to root around the house for random screws."

These would be people who have things that don't actually require maintenance or attention. Things that just work, because they are "new".

The concept of new also carries quite a few additional connotations besides the one that I focus on - which is essentially "not broken". What's wrong with me? It's not as if I dwell outside of a culture and society where it's signaled that people should like very much like "new" over "old" (or "used"...another word for old). How am I sure of this? Well, let's go to one of America's most important cultural touchstones, the television game show.

Of all of the things that I watched on TV during my most formative years, game shows were hugely impactful. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I tended to watch these alone, during the day, at times in the summer when I wasn't at school and my mother needed some alone time. During the rest of the year, there were the shows that came on in the late afternoon and I could watch them after coming home from school. Again, generally alone.

Sometimes, my family lived in places where I in fact did interact with kids in the neighborhood and could spend time outside of school with other young humans. But most times, I was alone and engaged in solitary experiences. During many of those years Bob Barker, Monty Hall, Wink Martindale, and of course Chuck Barris were steadfast companions. While I absolutely adored the Gong Show, it was conspicuously missing "FABULOUS PRIZES" plus I could tell that many contestants were setups (i.e., not genuine people off the street). This was problematic since even as a little kid, I found nothing more fascinating than watching and trying to figure out genuine, random, people in what I took (for lack of any better knowledge) to be their authentic environments.

I therefore took to The Price is Right - hereafter referred to as "TPIR" - like Napoleon Chagnon to the Yanomami or more accurately Clifford Geertz to Balinese cock fighters. (FWIW, that last link is something of a Rosetta Stone.) This was helped by the fact that from what I could tell, there seemed to be strong similarities between the Yanomami and Balinese cock fighters and all the people around me (or at very least their children). There was clearly much for me to learn by studying these people. Specifically, I became interested in the things that seemed to bring them joy and despair.

Mostly though, we're here though to talk about the joy.

For example, it was highly instructive for me to watch contestant Terri and the fascinating range of emotions she exhibits while being presented with her slate of FABULOUS PRIZES.

Never taking any of the behavior I observed in the field at face value, I wondered if Terri would have been even more overjoyed if she were presented with something other than a Fiat Strada (as in our lede photo), equipped with "optional rear window defogger and cloth interior". In fact, this short option list also seems somewhat underwhelming and confusing for TPIR announcer Johnny Leonard Olson whose delivery in the clip seems to imply that he too thought that maybe there'd be more to the Fiat's option list than that.

Terri in her incredible 1982 red pants looks a little skeptical at first about the Kodak Instant Camera, which she doesn't win, thereby dodging the bullet of having an imminently useless device once the product was withdrawn from the market due to copyright infringement in 1986. Then her spirits increasingly rise as other prizes are presented. You can see a flash of "What the heck am I going to do with that thing?" emotion when the deep fryer and coffee maker are shown, but the sheer fact of getting the chance to win something - she does win the Presto Fry-Daddy and the Conair Makeup Mirror, but loses the coffee pot -- buoys her emotionally as she advances to the chance to win the NEW CAR!!! When she does successfully use one of her two allowed guesses as to the price of the car, she performs as expected and goes into full "my head is about to explode if I don't hold on to the top of my skull" mode. Leaping, jumping, and hugging Bob in spasms of joy ensues.

And this is all over a vehicle that she may not really have needed and one that it turns out that few Americans wanted in 1982. There were only about 14,000 Fiats sold in the US that year. Not all of those were Stradas. I couldn't find a single picture of a red one from the US. The lede Strada photo is actually of a UK version where they seem a little (but not much) more common than in the US. 1982 was the year that Fiat basically threw in the towel (for 25 years) on selling cars to Americans. Nevertheless, this unappreciated car inspired joy in Terri. I think mostly because it was new.

I'll note that Terri's joy almost certainly had nothing to do with the Strada being "handbuilt by robots" as the memorable commercial noted (but Johnny Olson didn't, which is odd given many of the strange tag lines he and TPIR producers hung on other cars given away on the show). Fiat's commercial is impressive, and I suspect that the robots probably did a better job than the guy who left the soda bottle inside of my family's 128 when it left the factory in Turin. But robots have no facility for exhibiting joy. They'd make poor TPIR contestants.

A little easier to find in the US is a car that was featured quite frequently on game shows, and TPIR specifically. The Chevy Vega. Despite being offered nearly as often as Broyhill Dining Room Sets in the 1970s, there are nowadays few unmolested 1973 Vega Hatchbacks left. The ultra low mileage 1976 one shown above recently sold on eBay for $10,000. Here I'll note that in 1976, today's $10,000 was only about $1750. I'm guessing that a Vega Hatchback in 1976 actually stickered for about twice that. So much for making a killing by holding onto your 1976 Vega for 50 years.

Inflation turns out to be another way to tamp down joy.

I struggled to find a green Vega Hatchback that compared with the one that was almost given away to contestant Mike in 1973. As the clip above shows, Mike seemed to be almost as enthusiastic about that NEW!!!! Vega (the options, as read by Johnny, included a "rear view mirror!") as he was confused by the set of World Book encyclopedias and the Princess Gardner purse set he was first offered. Never mind though, he does start to work up the expected and customary joy when shown the Whirlpool self-cleaning oven that he might could win.

Most important, as Bob and Johnny tell Mike, all of these things will be NEW!!! That will be the case whether or not Mike actually needed a new oven. Maybe he and the missus — that’s her at the start of the clip with an impressive hairdo that seems inspired by Speed Racer’s helmet, or so I would have thought in 1973 — live in a rental and don’t need their own appliances.  Or maybe they just bought an oven a week ago. This same logic of course probably applies to the other prizes Mike’s competing for, including ultimately the Vega. Maybe they took the bus to the TV studio, but likely Mike and the Speed Racer lady already have a car. Is adding a new Vega to the household going to change their lives so substantially that it warrants all of that head-grabbing, spinning and screaming?

From the looks of it, one would think so. Well, it is a nice shade of green. And it has body side moldings…and a rear view mirror.

Mike missed the Vega – “A car worth owning and driving.” (whaaaat?) according to Johnny’s vocal – by $3. Oh well. Although I doubt it, I hope that Mike still has his Whirlpool self-cleaning oven. I sure would. It looks like a keeper to me.

Through rigorous observation, I learned that the amount of joy expressed by game show contestants certainly did vary according to the prize. Terri and Mike really only went ballistic when the car was offered. In Terri's case, that took a while with the Fiat. Ruthie, in the clip above - winner of a steam cabinet (from the "famous Spiegel Catalog...Spiegel, Chicago 60609") and then potentially an armoire - is so clearly conveying "What the HECK do I need this big honking piece of furniture for??" until the (NEW!!!!) "1973 Nova Coupe, from Chevrolet!" is revealed.

Just to insure that maximum Joy of New can be achieved by the contestants, Johnny peppers his description of the prize cars with aphorisms that are mysteriously and nearly Zen-like. While the Vega is "A car worth owning and driving." We are likewise informed by the polyester-clad Shamans of Joy, Johnny and Bob that Ruthie's potential Nova is a vehicle where "real improvements make it even better." That would seem to be even better than NEW!!! It's amazing.

Well, unspecified improvements or not, I will confess that in general the Nova's a car around which I might be able to work up some joy; particularly in Code 51-Light Yellow.

Of course that would be due to the fact that starting in 1973 the Nova came with an optional tent. Now that's a real improvement!

It's too bad that TPIR wasn't giving away a 1973 Nova Hatchback and the optional "Hatchback Hutch". For a show sometimes given to awarding camping equipment (often received by contestants with only slightly more enthusiasm than Ruthie's steam cabinet and armoire), a Nova with a tent doesn't seem like it should have been too much of a stretch.

Here's a family in a Hatchback Hutch-equipped Nova being humorously attacked by a bear. They seem quite happy about what should otherwise be described as a predicament. Maybe they won the car on a different game show and the joy-buzz hasn't yet worn off.

Before leaving 1973 and Ruthie entirely, it bears mentioning that she's one of the contestants who actually had the chance to win two cars on the same show. That's right, after playing a perfect game to win the lovely Light Yellow 1973 Nova (and having already won a less than joyous steam cabinet), Ruthie faced runner up and decidedly downcast nervous Donna in the Showcase Showdown.

Ruthie passed on bidding for a Broyhill Upholstery Grouping (that's a thing I guess), that sat on top of Monsanto carpeting ("Good looks that will last for years!" Monsanto is quite renowned for making a number of products that last for years, potentially forever.), surrounded by Masonite photo-woodgrain paneling, and to "keep it looking beautiful, 24 cans of Panel Magic!" (from "Magic American Chemical Corporation").

You can't make this stuff up.

After compelling Donna to bid on that Showcase, Ruthie wound up bidding on another piece of exercise equipment (again from Spiegel, Chicago, 60609), a motorized tricycle, and yes, another NEW CAR! Given that it was 1973, and clearly TPIR had something going with Chevrolet that year, Ruthie was offered a 1973 Vega - "The little car that does everything well!" -- where the announced option list included only "bias ply tires", and unfortunately no tent.

Regardless of where he got his Vega, is there anything more joyful than being a mustached 70's dude snuggling up with a foxy lady friend in a Hatchback Hutch-equipped Vega? In matching PJs? For the record, the Hatchback Hutch was also a dealer option on Vega hatchbacks (and Kammback wagons) in 1973 and 1974.

In the end, at least as far as the Vega is concerned, it's a moot point since Ruthie lost the Showcase Showdown to Donna. Donna, who may still have that long-lasting Monsanto carpet and at least a few cans of Panel Magic under her kitchen sink. She may not have been as good an exhibitor of joy as Ruthie, but I'll bet that Donna got a lot longer use out of that Upholstery Grouping than Ruthie might have gotten from a 1973 Vega with no tent and only tires. 1970s couches still inhabit thousands of basements in the U.S. and have their own online photo collections. My difficulty in finding current photos of 1973 Vegas speaks for itself. Ultimately, there may have been more joy in utilitarian exercise equipment and a couch than a roundly problematic (aka, a deadly sin around these parts) car which didn't even come with a tent.

Despite growing up on a pretty steady diet of 1970s and 1980s television game shows, I ultimately grew weary of watching the endless stream of performative expressions of joy surrounding fabulous NEW things. That's about when I began to suspect that the Joy of New may not be a universal thing, despite its advocacy in American culture. I just wasn't buying it.

Instead, I became increasingly lost wondering what winning TPIR contestants would end up doing with all of their existing appliances, dining room sets, bedroom furniture, and yes, even cars if they won new ones. What if you just didn't need yet another steam cabinet (just ask Lucy about those things), or one at all? Once I found out about the federal taxes owed on winnings and how it turns out that contestants who couldn't cover the taxes on prizes often had to forfeit the prize (something that happens frequently with prize cars), that really sealed it for me. I started to perceive the whole thing of winning FABULOUS PRIZES as a scam, performed as an entertaining social ritual that attempts to shore up norms and expectations that the tribe considers beneficial and promotional to the common good. In this case, the common good most immediately included Chevrolet, Broyhill, Monsanto, and the Magic American Chemical Company.

Gradually at first, but increasingly with age I understood that "new" nearly always came with strings and burdens that would sooner or later outweigh whatever initial benefit there might be to acquiring something new. Likewise, I realized that I'm never going to wind up on a game show - which is good because I am really not very good at winning anything. All in all it's highly unlikely that anyone is going to give me a NEW CAR!!! much less a harvest gold Caloric combination range and microwave oven.

Even more than the problem with taxes, I am confident that I'd rather not have the burden of getting rid of my existing useful things and replacing them with other stuff where the primary benefit is "new". How does "new" outweigh "still useful"? Well, it doesn't in my book.

Largely as a result of this perspective - which comes by the way with an actual physical reaction akin to nausea on those occasions where I do actually have to write a check for some major new item -- I've developed significant expertise understanding how my dishwasher, washer, dryer, oven, etc. work. The thought of not utilizing those skills and instead being burdened with devices that will in all likelihood be nearly impossible to repair (given modern trends in the development of non-repairable machines) or that are designed to be replaced in a few years is to me unthinkable.

That very much includes cars. I'm not so crazy about new car smell that I'm going to readily abandon fixing up an existing car. All the better since so far I've avoided the universe of new cars that include features such as special screws that can't be removed with conventional tools or options that can be enable or disabled via the Internet of things. More to my point though, it's my feeling that I would be abandoning something - such as a car - by not doing everything I could to continue its journey as a useful device. So maybe that's it. I cannot abide by the non-useful, and I cannot walk away from the useful.

Notwithstanding the fact that I've just spent nearly 3500 words (already, and we're not quite done yet) questioning the Joy of New, I also understand that there are many arguments that other people have for their appreciation of new. Lots of those people probably live even in my small town. A town where the transfer station is chockablock with perfectly usable and still useful appliances and electronics every time I visit. I get a similar feeling when I visit a junkyard and realize that many of the vehicles are half a decade newer than whatever I drove to reach the junkyard. So yeah, the tribe that I'm studying is quite large, and there continues to be much that I can learn.

Still, I'm also aware that I'm not the only person in the United States who questions the Joy of New. In fact there are even whole political movements that hew toward my point of view. I am not sure that the Millennial and subsequent gen folks who largely populate those movements had to resist the cultural tsunami that was the 1970s - 1990s obsession with New. But for those of you who have or did, welcome to higher ground. Know that there is much joy to be found in repairing your Bosch SHE3ARF2UC, as your BMW N52 E9X. And should you be sustainably campaigning a 1973 or 1974 Vega, Nova, Apollo, Astra or Omega I wish you well in seeking and ultimately finding a used Hatchback Hutch kit (the only kind there is) and thereby reaching our shared version of measured, restrained, and hands-on Joy.

Even better if you're close to 5 feet tall.

Related Reading

• Jason Shafer did a much deeper dive specifically on Cars From The Price is Right, and also fills in much of the back story on the various models who waved their hands over and around said cars.

• Paul Neidermeyer presents a Vintage Review of the 1973 Vega.

• There also have been several COALs featuring 1973 Vegas. Just Plain Joe had one.

• Likewise a 1973 Nova. THISWAS had a Fiat Strada and also dined in the 1970s at the revolving restaurant on top of the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta. I did one of those things. No One has discussed the Hatchback Hutch exactly, although Paul has pointed out that AMC once offered something quite similar.

• AARON65 appreciates lime green cars - including Vegas and Novas - perhaps even more than the producers of The Price is Right.

• JPC's mother once won a car, brought it home, and that was just the start of the story.

Lede photo of the 1982 Fiat Strada is from Mathewsons Classic Cars - UK

Anyone needing a Price is Right/Bob Barker fix should head to The Price is Right/The Barker Era YouTube channel. Dinging bells and overwhelming joy abounds. The video clips used in this post came from that channel.

Finally, it's worth noting that there's an Instagram account that features screen shots of a tremendous number of the cars offered on The Price is Right in the 1970s and 1980s. Sadly, the image quality is so poor that I don't want to repost them here. But if you can bear venturing on to Instagram, the account is fun browsing for some of the unexpected - and very colorful - vehicles offered on that game show.