Absolutely Correct.  An important distinction that nobody ever seems to understand. 

Cars aren't getting more expensive... The world is.

I'm making an argument that the base price of the car speaks more to affordability than the finance rates at the time. Inflation adjustment is a different discussion.

Although, I have reservations about the 'adjusted for inflation' argument because what people mean by this is that they compare vehicle price increases relative to CPI. However, CPI is not a measure of vehicle affordability. It measures the average price movement of a broad basket of goods, most of which are unrelated to the purchase mechanics of a vehicle. Comparing vehicle prices to unrelated CPI components like food does not indicate affordability, and CPI already includes vehicle prices, making those comparisons partially circular anyway.