I don't know if it compares really, a mini cooper S in 1970 was £962, a mini cooper S today is 20K, but the original mini is probably more comparable to something like a fiat Panda which is 10K.

I guess that peoples perception of what a car should be has changed so dramatically. Also the number of manufacturers of affordable cars has increased dramatically as have their production. Cars were originally hugely labour intensive to produce compared with modern manufacturing.

In 1988 a cosworth was £19500 according to measuring worth thats nowover £40K! But thats not dramatically off the mark in my eyes as in 88 a cosworth was probably the equivalent to an M3 today..... which is £40k

Interesting topic.