What Is the Most Expensive Car in the World?

You might not be a gearhead or any kind of "car person" at all, but it's probably crossed your mind at some point: What's the most expensive car in the world? It's something you may have wondered as you were researching buying a car for yourself. It's easy to bump up against the limit of your budget while car shopping, so what could you get if your budget was basically infinity?

The easy answer, of course, is a lot. But it turns out there are a couple of ways to break down what we mean by "most expensive," so here are the world's most expensive cars — plural.

The Highest Price Tag: Pagani Huayra Tricolore, $6.67 million

When you get this far into the hypercar stratosphere, it's hard to know what counts as a price tag. These cars aren't divided so much into trim levels as they into extremely limited editions. That's how the Pagani Huayra Tricolore justifies its price. The company is only building three of these roadsters, and they come with every bell and whistle Pagani has in its Italian factory, including an 840 hp V12 engine.

Honorable mention: Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+, which seems like a bargain in comparison at $3.9 million. Especially if you consider price per horsepower, as it makes 1,600 hp from its W12 engine.

The Highest Price Paid: 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, $48.4 million

New hypercars and luxury cars are extremely expensive, but if you want to see stratospheric prices, head to vintage car auctions. In 2018, RM Sotheby's sold a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO for nearly $50 million. The car was estimated to bring in $45 million, so this huge price was not actually a shock when the hammer fell.

Why is this old car worth so much? For one thing, it has matching numbers, which means the engine and the chassis originally came together from the Ferrari scuderia. There were only 36 built, and this was the third in that series. Legendary driver Phil Hill tested it in a race before it was sold to its first owner, who won races in it throughout the 1960s — without a single accident.