How can people afford cars?

They work harder and take better advantage of opportunities that present themselves than you do?

Or they're just a little bit older than you? I'm 40 and I bought my first house for £40k in 1996 - worth maybe £170k now. I've never earned that much or been given any great amount, I just rode the government-engineered house price boom upwards. If house prices back then were what they are now, I'd probably never get to own a house.
On cars - I've found that however old or new a car is, they always seem to cost me about £1000 a year between depreciation and maintenance. Newer cars depreciate more but need less maintenance; older ones the other way around. Always seems to add up to about a grand, for some reason.