Here's What It Can Really Cost To Maintain A Serious Car Collection

According to a recent estimate by AAA, owning the average car in the U.S. costs $11,577 per year. For most people, this is just part of life — a necessary expense that gets you to work, the store, the doctor's office, or school. For enthusiasts, car expenses are more than just necessities, but the costs associated with collecting cars are on an entirely different level. 

For top-tier hypercar collections like the $30-million Hamilton Collection, owner Steve Hamilton told The Iced Coffee Hour Clips that owning and maintaining the fleet costs "north of 260, 270" thousand dollars a month, or over $3.2 million a year, with maintenance and upgrades alone at $135,000 monthly. For his $3.36-million car collection, James Condon — aka TheStradman — says that maintaining it costs $154,373 every year, covering maintenance, insurance, registration, and tires.

Harry Metcalfe from the U.K.'s Harry's Garage recently talked about how much it costs to run his more modest collection of classic and modern classic cars, and the total just for insurance and maintenance came to 39,845 pounds ($53,422  in dollars). Given that none of these is even close to being among 10 of the largest private car collections in the world, it's safe to say that this is only the tip of the car-collecting money iceberg.

The average cost reported by AAA is, as the name suggests, average — it isn't associated with cars in any of these collections. The price to maintain hypercars and supercars is in a totally different ballpark. For example, one Bugatti Veyron Sang Noir headlight costs as much as a nicely equipped mid-size crossover — $38,000. That's roughly the cost of a 2026 hybrid all-wheel-drive Honda CR-V. 

A complete set of tires for a mid-size crossover, meanwhile, would set you back just $580 to $1,160. For a Bugatti Veyron, though, a fresh set of tires is going to cost you more than the price of that crossover — $42,000. If you still decide to buy your hybrid Honda and the high-voltage battery needs replacement, you're looking at a price tag of $2,000 to $8,000. However, if a McLaren P1's hybrid battery dies, a new one costs $156,700, enough to buy a very small parking lot full of Honda CR-Vs.

Granted, the Veyron and the P1 are million-dollar hypercars, but supercar maintenance can also be equally as daunting. For something like a Lamborghini Aventador, budgeting $6,000 to $10,000 just for basic yearly service is common. For anything more than that, it's dozens of thousands. When such a cost is translated to multiple cars in a collection, numbers like Hamilton's and Condon's are entirely plausible.

All cars need tires; all hybrid cars need batteries. However, when maintaining a car collection, there are many additional costs most people never have to battle. For instance, if you own a lot of expensive cars, you also need a place to store them. Manny Khoshbin, a Los Angeles car collector, says storing his collection in an adequate setting costs $180,000 a year.

Since it's such a huge concentration of value, security is also necessary, and the cost for this isn't publicly known. However, if you don't spend on security, your insurance premiums could go up, so you might as well do it. Owners of very serious car collections also need to employ multiple people to take care of them. That's especially important because many of the cars aren't regularly driven.

Moving cars between events is often done via transport, and these can cost a lot, too. A domestic enclosed transport of a single supercar can cost $2,000 to $5,000. In many cases, personal transport insurance is also needed, as many carriers only provide minimum liability coverage. Lastly, car cleaning tips and tricks aren't enough for collectible cars. It's all about professional detailing, and according to Khosbin, that's $36,000 per year.