There is a competition called the 24 hours of lemons, where the car has to cost $500 or less outside of safety equipment. Getting a car for that price is near impossible unless it’s totally crashed out but when I was young $500 specials would run for years without much issue. Car costs are nuts these days.
He didn’t even take the time to look up the effect of inflation between the good ol’ days and today. Didnt specify what time frame in what location he’s talking about when he says $500 cars used to run a while.
A private sale $500 car in the US midwest would be expected to run reliably for a few years back in the early 90s.
I think it was up to $1,000 by 2000 in the same area, so the auther is probably in their 50s or older and doesn’t understand inflation.