As a side note, the pound breaking in so badly in value certainly doesn’t help.
In 2015, which isn’t that long ago, £3000 were worth £3700 in todays money. So APs increased already by what, 23ish percent through inflation (and deliberate devaluing) alone.
That makes the comparison to “back then” rather unfair – it’s not that AP drastically changed, it’s that almost 25% of it is just money being worth less today (on top of other factors). You can’t really expect anyone (not just car manufacturers) to foot the bill for inflation.