Originally Posted by
Jughed
That $4700 top of the line Trek in todays dollars = 8k.
Todays top of the line Trek = 13k+/-.
The Look and Pinarello have an even bigger delta... way out pacing standard inflation.
And you could probably say that the CF manufacturing process back then was more expensive - new design and development, probably less automated... the Trek was probably hand made in the USA,, the Pinarello hand made in Italy... Look bikes hand crafted in France... not anymore.
Design and development costs today are far higher. More specialist engineers, wind tunnels etc.
Asian labour is cheaper, but there is lot more involved in producing monocoque cf layups vs bonded carbon tube. If they were manufactured in the US today then they would be even more expensive.
$8k today still buys you a bike technically well in advance of what was on the market back then.