[DRIFTER-M]

Think it’s both, potentially.

AMD above^ has some good insight as well as to one of the current problems.

Honestly the U.S. being able to import has ruined the scene immeasurably, IMO. The ripple affect of the “take a loan and spend everything” style of the car youth here has caused substantial inflation elsewhere, namely Japan who publicly ran news about how high the prices were here and that they should increase the prices there as well (which they did). Makes sense. The difference to this point and why prices were relatively stable for over a decade stems from the fact that many countries are more financially responsible than ours. Our youth has gotten happy with taking 20k loans, co-signed by mom and dad, for a 30 year old car and importers are feasting on that profit, happily. Places like Japan tend to be far more careful financially, but that “get rich” run that begin with the r32 legalization naturally made them want to not get scraped either, and their exporters aren’t stupid to the game.

It’s unfortunate. We use to see good pushback in the scene against price gauging and making dumb decisions, but lately I have seen people sort of celebrating it. The market is the market, so do what you must - but man, as someone who has cared about this scene for over half of my existence now it sucks to see it being ruined in its current state. The community aspect seems long gone. Get rich for that Instagram like tho. I sound more and more like an old ‘get off my lawn’ dude, but dang do I care about the hobby, and man does it suck to see what’s happening. Drifting was the bargain, close knit, anyone jump in and have fun community. Miss that.