The Most Expensive Car In America

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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The Most Expensive Car In America

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Extremely expensive cars generally fall into two categories. One is ultrafast sports cars, which are usually not American brands. The other is super luxury vehicles, which are not American brands either. The most expensive car sold in America is the Rolls Royce Phantom, a handmade model of one of the most famous luxury cars ever. It has a price of $547,750. Second on the list is the Lamborghini Aventador, one of the world’s fastest cars, priced at $518,695.

The Rolls Royce Phantom is about 30% more expensive than the median price of a US house, which puts it out of reach for all but a tiny fraction of car buyers. Car and Driver describes the brand’s power. “The Rolls-Royce Phantom is the world’s most recognizable symbol of automotive extravagance and status. Its huge waterfall grille and classic upright proportions convey a simple and singular message: wealth goes here.”

Very little about the Phantom is practical. It has a massive 563 HP engine a 12-cylinder turbocharged engine. In city driving, the Phantom is unlikely to get more than 10 miles per gallon. Much of the interior is made of expensive wood and leather. According to Edmunds, the dashboard clock has been 3-D printed.

One of the most expensive versions of the Phantom has an extended wheelbase and what Rolls Royce calls a “lounge seat,” which looks like a costly leather couch. It also has picnic tables for two rear-seat occupants.

Finally, good luck finding a dealer. According to the Rolls Royce website, there are very few of them.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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