I bought my red top about 4 years ago so that's why I said ~$170, back then it was more. Optima has patents on their battery's internal design that IMO make it better then the competition's "traditional" designs. I remember before I purchased the red top, I was listening to my 1000 watt stereo (on medium volume) with the car off during lunch and my battery drained after only 20 minutes. With the red top I had listened for an hour (sometimes more) on multiple occasions without the Optima dying and always having plenty of juice left to start the car. Just my $.02