My dad was of the new-car-every-three years generation. I had two cars for a combined 27 years. And the second one I bought used, with 48K miles already on it. For most of the time I had those cars, fixing them was far less expensive than buying a new car (we had a budget of about $1200/yr for that, most years that was enough). For the amount we actually needed a car (which is now none) the cost of a new car would have been insane.
For that generation, getting that "new car" every three years was mostly a status symbol signalling effect.