Buying a car can be a thrilling experience. You get to play around with a new vehicle and if it’s new, you drive home with the satisfaction that the driver seat is free from anyone’s farts but your own. It’s often reported that the average price of a new car in America is expensive and is getting only more pricey. That gets me thinking, what’s the most expensive car you’ve ever purchased?
Admittedly, my fleet has grown to such a size that I keep a note on my phone about my vehicles and their current status. Many people wonder how on Earth I’ve achieved keeping so many vehicles running and driving. A part of my secret is the fact that I live in one of the cheapest apartments in my area. I also share expenses with my wife, freeing up money for vehicular shenanigans.
The other part of it is the fact that I almost always buy a vehicle at the bottom of its depreciation curve. I don’t shop on Bring a Trailer, Cars & Bids, or any of the specialty online car markets. No, I search the bottom of the barrel on Facebook and buy cars with tons of miles, rust, or a mechanical issue here or there. It’s telling that the nicest car I’ve purchased used was the Bishop’s 178,000-mile 2007 BMW 530xi wagon.
New cars are a different story. I’ve been lucky enough to purchase four vehicles in my life thus far. The two motorcycles were a 2023 Royal Enfield Classic 350 purchased for $5,850 and a 2024 CFMoto Papio SS for $4,500. The two cars were a 2012 Smart Fortwo Passion Coupe and a 2016 Smart Fortwo Edition #1. The 2012 Smart stickered for $16,200 new and after financing, I paid about $19,200 total for the car. The 2016 Smart was about $17,000 and change when it was new, and I got a stellar 0 percent financing deal on that one.
So, I’ve spent $36,000-ish on two Smart Fortwos, which basically means I got one real car out of the other end. I still have both of those cars today and I plan to take them to the grave with me, so I think it’s money well spent.
Here’s where I turn things to you. Are you one of the Americans to have spent over $48,000 on a new car? Have you gone all of your life never spending more than $10,000 on a ride?
Nope. $46500 for my truck was the most I’ve ever spent. Although I guess MSRP was somewhere north of 50, so maybe that counts?
Amusingly, my car spending has been on a downward trend since. The Corvette was the second cheapest car I had ever bought at the time, and the Prius is the cheapest by a wide margin. At the rate I’m going I’ll be buying $500 broken down Jeeps in no time. 😉
The first brand new car I purchased was in 2018, a Camaro SS 1LE that was $45k OTD. I put $15k down to keep payments reasonable, and I knew I wouldn’t be keeping it long term. 3 years later I sold it to Vroom when they offered $41k. Thank you pandemic pricing.. unfortunately the 1LE versions are holding their value pretty damn well. I was hoping to be able to get back into a used one for under $30k by now..
I had been casually looking at the Colorado ZR2 as a new daily driver and in early ’22 my Xterra finally started giving me enough issues that it was time to get more serious about it, combined with them announcing no extended cab or diesel for the 3rd gen. I was lucky to get an order in and accepted a few weeks before the cutoff. It came to $48k OTD, dealer wouldn’t do invoice pricing like they did for the Camaro, but the Covid truck craze had cooled off enough by that time that they at least accepted my supplier discount for about 2.5k off.
My biggest purchase has been $38K for a 2010 Evora.