What cars would you buy if you won the 425 Million Dollar Powerball Jackpot?

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In case you haven’t heard, the Powerball jackpot is now at a record high of $425 million dollars. If you are one of the tens of millions of optimistic people out there who have purchased their stake in this Wednesday night’s historic drawing, then you make be asking yourself this question. What cars can I buy with this kind of dough? Since we are automotive statistic nerds, we have crunched the numbers and compiled a possible scenario for your post Powerball win car shopping spree.

Q:

Which cars can you buy with this kind of cash?

A:

Every single new car available…seriously.

We have added up the starting MSRP of every single brand new car (pricing gathered from 2012-2013 models) available in America and added them up. This list excludes car makes that are no longer to be made such as Suzuki, Maybach and Saab, but contains all of the model variations available. For example, for the Cadillac CTS model; the CTS Premium Sedan, CTS Coupe, CTS-V Sedan, CTS-V Coupe, CTS-V Wagon and CTS Wagon Premium Wagon are all included separately. The cost for purchasing the 551 new car model’s variations available in the U.S. today would “only” set you back $31,562,516. Assuming that you beat the 175 million to 1 odds and choose the cash option of $278,300,000, then after taxes you would have $208,725,000 to play with (using the tax rate from Delaware, Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, US Virgin Islands or Washington). In other words, as a mega lottery winner you would be able to purchase one of every single new car model available on the market for only the equivalent of 15% annual interest on your money, which shouldn’t be an impossible target to hit with that kind of capital. Of course if you have a car collection this size then you would literally need a parking garage size structure to hold your 2012-2013 collection of new cars. An average estimate for a 600 stall 5-level parking garage structure is around $18 million dollars, but lets assume the costs are considerably less in a residential setting – let’s say attached to your mansion.

Now while the previous scenario may be interesting as far as knowing the extent of what that massive 425 million dollar Powerball Jackpot could buy you in terms of brand new cars; it’s likely not an option that any sane person would actually implement if/when they are in that situation. This is in part because of the logistical obstacles of a collection this large, but more importantly because 90% are either not indicative of their new found wealth or just plain suck. For example, included in the list lies the Nissan Versa Sedan, Chevy Spark, Smart Fortwo, Ford Fiesta, Kia Rio, Toyota Yaris and Hyundai Accent. While some other these may be decent for sub-compact economy cars, they almost certainly are not going to be gleefully snatched up by an individual worth north of 200 million dollars and especially not as their daily driver.

On the other hand, the remaining 10% or so of the vehicles on the list are high-quality desirable machines. For example, the complete 2012-2013 new car list contains the following 20 cars which are the makes and models that we would purchase first if we won the $465,000,000 Powerball lotto jackpot this Wednesday night.

Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead
Ferrari 599 GTO Coupe
Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 Coupe
Lexus LFA Coupe
Aston Martin DBS Convertible
Bentley Mulsanne Sedan
Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Spyder Performante Convertible
Ferrari 458 Italia Coupe
McLaren MP4-12C Coupe
Mercedes-Benz S-Class S65 AMG Sedan
Audi R8 Convertible 5.2 GT
Porsche 911 GT2 RS Coupe
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Convertible
Bentley Continental GTC Speed AWD Convertible
Jaguar XJ Ultimate Supercharged Sedan
Maserati GranTurismo Convertible
BMW ALPINA B7 SWB Sedan
Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Coupe
SRT Viper Coupe
Nissan GT-R Coupe
Rolls-Royce Ghost Sedan

Matter of fact, just give me a Ferrari 458 and I’d be as happy as a clam. Post a comment below and say what you would do with the money. Would you buy a fleet of new luxury or sports cars or go for classic muscle cars instead?