Can You Guess the World’s Most Expensive Car of 2024?

Wondering what the most expensive car in the world might be in 2024? Well, crowning that position at the pinnacle of the automotive world requires a bit of clarification first. In terms of most expensive single vehicle in the world, the difference between an MSRP price tag and collectible value comes into play. 

Then there’s the distinction between a brand-new one-off build from a custom coachmaker as the result of a years-long collaboration with a client, or the most expensive car available to order right now. And of course, unknown private sales then render any speculation about the world of billionaires making deals on yachts in Monaco a subject entirely inaccessible to the general public.

For cars that can be at least somewhat confirmed, Rolls-Royce once again took the top spot this year with a one-of-one exclusive build dubbed the La Rose Noire Droptail that reportedly cost north of $32 million. This project took around four years to complete, and is the first of four Droptails that Rolls plans to build. Since then, two more named the Arcadia and Amythest featured similar levels of customization, with pricing estimated at $30 million each.

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Who Owns the Most Expensive Car in the World?

Clearly, Rolls and its clients prefer to stay somewhat anonymous, though details of the La Rose Noire Droptail hint at a French family in the fashion industry as the owners. The Droptail series builds on Rolls-Royce’s earlier Sweptail and Boat Tail, the latter of which set a record as the world’s most expensive car in 2021 with a price tag of $28 million. That commission went to an anonymous businessman in the pearl industry, while another Boat Tail is almost certainly owned by Beyonce and Jay-Z.

In the years leading up to Rolls-Royce’s custom creations setting new standards for automotive prices, Bugatti regularly fit into the melee with a series of special editions—the La Voiture Noire commanded $13.4 million, the Chiron Profilee cost $10.8 million, and the Centodieci stickered for $9.0 million.

Other new cars this year have yet to eclipse, or even approach, such astounding figures. Each of Red Bull’s RB17 track toys unveiled a Goodwood this summer, based almost entirely on legitimate Formula 1 competition car technology, will cost upward $6 million—while Lanzante plans to perform modifications to make the RB17 street legal, to the tune of $350,000 or so. 

Another race car for the road, Aston Martin’s Valkyrie, starts at $3.2 million but infamously requires serious service to keep running. Two hypercars that prioritize analog driving dynamics, the Gordon Murray Automotive T.50S and Pagani Utopia, cost $4.36 million and $3.4 million respectively, while Koenigsegg’s world-beating Jesko Absolut starts at $3.4 million as well.

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Most Expensive Cars Sold at Auction

As wild as the prices for custom Rolls-Royces, Bugattis, or Koenigseggs might seem, collectible cars take the numbers up to a whole new level. Auction results often allow insight into the gargantuan sums that the world’s wealthiest enthusiasts and collectors will pay to own some of the greatest cars in history. Case in point, when Mercedes-Benz sold a so-called “Silver Arrow” out of the company’s museum for a whopping $142 million in 2022. The auction came courtesy of RM Sotheby’s and took place in Stuttgart, and Mercedes-Benz announced plans to put the proceeds from selling one of just two 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupes in existence toward a new educational scholarship charity.

The next five most valuable car auctions known to the public all belong to Ferraris in the past decade. RM Sotheby’s also auctioned a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO by Scaglietti for $51,705,000 in November of 2023, a pair of 1962 GTOs (non-Scaglietti) for $48.4 million and $38.1 million in 2018 and 2014 respectively. But rumors abound of a 250 GTO sold behind closed doors for as much as $80 million in 2018.

All told, the Uhlenhaut Coupe’s final hammer price more than quadruples Rolls-Royce’s most expensive offering to date, as befitting a legitimate piece of automotive and motorsport history. Whether collectors will deem today’s most expensive cars as worthy of similar investment in 70 more years remains a question, albeit one that 99.99 percent of enthusiasts on the planet will certainly never need to worry about.

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