I think for those of us who are of a certain age, our eyes don't see the older cars that are still on the road as "old" like the cars we drove. Simply put, cars just age better now. One of my boys drives a 2002 Ford Focus. On a years-elapsed basis, that thing is older than the rusted heap of a mid-80s Mustang I was driving at his age, but paint and trim hold up better now, plastic bumpers and edges don't rust the way our old cars did, and it doesn't look like what the phrase "20 year old car" brings to my mind. Somewhere between the mid-90s and mid-00s, there was a marked shift in the way cars age, I think, so the beaters my kids' generation are driving (with the exception of the '94 Silverado that was my oldest's) just don't look like beaters the way our 70s-to-90s cars did when they were the same age.
ETA: But I do think there's also more parental willingness to give kids newer cars than there was when I was learning to drive too, using the need for the latest and best safety features as reasoning for incurring the expense. Only the "rich kids" at my school got a new or nearly-new (< 5ish years) car when they first started driving, but a lot of my daughter's friends got either new or 2-3 year old cars along with their license. I'm not sure if that is because parents aren't keeping their cars as long so the hand-me-downs are newer, or if it is because parents are more willing/able to spend on giving their kids cars they view as safer and/or more reliable.
