The 1983 VW Scirocco came with leather seat covers; it was originally supposed to just be a special edition that had them, but when the sales of the '82 model fell well short, the "special edition" became the only one made for '83. Those leather seat covers, as spare parts, totalled up at about 70% of the price of the vehicle. This was *just the seat covers*, not the whole seats.
I discovered this when contacted about getting a set of those covers for a car that had been subjected to wind-blown rain during a hurricane; it was parked in an apartment building parking garage while the owner was away for three weeks. Upon return, he discovered that his seats were now teal-green velour instead of satin black leather.
The retail price of the parts to build the average automobile is typically about ten times the sticker price of the assembled vehicle. Oddly enough, as the price of the vehicle goes up, the ratio usually falls. If enough of the parts in a vehicle are fast-moving, it can make sense to buy one to dismantle in some cases. This, by the way, is why chop shops can make so much money cutting up late-model thefts. |
