automationgame.com

I decided to see how hard it would be to make a proper pony-car in Automation, and one of the criteria in 1965 for these was "less than $2500 list price". I figure that means less than $1500 in total costs, but that seems either impossible (if I read game prices as era-specific currency) or very easy (if I read them as 2015 dollars). Any definitive rulings?

It's 2015 dollars.

Btw, your total cost figure is totally wrong. After you include factory overhead costs, engineering costs, factory tooling costs, the fact you want to make a profit, etc., it turns out the list price is not just 70% higher than total cost. I'd try aiming for 900 1965 dollars in total cost.

The figure I last heard was that manufacturing costs were ~50% of MSRP and that the margin was tighter with low-end vehicles (which makes especial sense with the pony cars, which were made from off-the-shelf components as much as possible).

That said, $900 in 1965 is roughly $6677 in 2015 if you use the consumer-price index, and that's about how much the total cost ran to in my one experiment. So from a self-imposed challenge perspective, that's probably a good target.