Here’s How Much It Costs to Lease a Multi-Million Dollar Vintage Ferrari
Give your credit score a real workout in the world of high-end auction leases.
Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, even the world of high-end car auctions has had to adapt. Auction house Gooding & Company will be hosting its first Geared Online auction exclusively on its website and bidding mobile app starting tomorrow, Aug. 3, and running through the week. But if forever-ownership of a seven-figure car isn't your jam, maybe consider leasing one?
Yes, that's a thing. Putnam Leasing has been the leasing provider for Gooding auctions since 2017, and will be offering its services for this Geared Online auction, which brings up an interesting question: "How much does it cost to lease a multiple million-dollar vintage Ferrari?"
There are 77 items up for auction, and 52 of them are cars. Luxury lifestyle website Lux Expose broke down the rates on several cars scheduled for the Gooding virtual auction block, and the numbers are will have you reaching for the calculator app.
Autoweek had a good primer on how auction leasing works back in 2018, and you may want to bone up before you blow a couple million on a Ferrari this week (a problem many of us face, I know):
“They come (to the auction) to buy a car, they bid on it, they win their bid,” [Putnam Leasing founder and CEO Steven] Posner said. “Most people don’t know they can actually lease the car they win at these auctions. The program that we have isn’t like a traditional closed-end lease where you give it back at the end of the lease, like a new Mercedes or a new Ford or a new Chevy. Those closed-end programs go for three years, you return it and walk away. Putnam specializes in an open-ended lease-to-own program. It has all the financial beauty of a lease, the tax benefits. It’s, in essence, like a balloon note finance, although it’s a lease.”
According to Putnam, applying for a lease starts with a predetermined lease-end value for the car, and payment plans range from 24 to 60 months. When the lease expires, buyers have four options. Pay the rest and own the car, sell it to pay the residual value while keeping any remaining profit, trade the car to a dealer and let them pay the residential amount, or start a new lease financing the car's residual value. The main advantage of this kind of program is that buyers can now bid while knowing they don't have to pay the full amount at the end of the auction. Knowing this could potentially increase the bidding.
This particular auction's most valuable car is a $3.25 million 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB long nose. This Ferrari 275 GTB is a one-of thanks to its color combination of Bianco exterior with beige interior and features all the goodies you would want like a six-carburetor intake and competition-style fuel filler cap.
Buyers will need to provide a $650,000 down payment to lease this long nose for 60 months at a $33,095 per month, plus tax.
The rest of the vehicles include a silver 2003 Ferrari Enzo and 1995 Ferrari F50, each asking for over half a million in down payment and monthly installments of $25,689. You can lease-to-own the raddest prancing horse of them all, the Ferrari F40, at $14,459 per month with a $300,000 down payment, or an iconic 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing for at $280,000 down and $13,650 a month.
Even a 1971 Porsche 911 ST Rally, valued at $1.25 million, is available to lease for just $250,000 down and pay just $12,049.
Who amongst us hasn't gone a spending bender at least once thanks to the double-edged sword of monthly-installments?
