Interesting what you guys are saying, I've had the feeling myself for a while. Kind of drawn towards a newer car than something 50 years old for performance/comfort/mileage reasons as well but it hasn't stopped me from contemplating grafting a old school body to say...a wrecked 2010-ish car and use the motor, electronics, interior and such to make more of an auto cross daily driver. Then again that's SUCH a big project.
I've seen some fairly salvageable guts from newer cars running around the 2k-3k range for the whole car.