When Lambo? How to Swap BTC for Luxury Cars
The biggest selling point of crypto has always been that it stands for being the fastest and most secure alternative payment method. Sadly, many industries have been slow to adopt, making swapping your crypto for important life milestones, like properties, tricky. While buying a pizza for BTC might be well and good, some of us want something a little more to show off how far we’ve come.
Thankfully, luxury cars are a hallmark of the crypto scene, so it should come as no surprise that several retailers have jumped on board in recent years, making it easier than ever to finally answer the age-old question; “wen Lambo?”
1. BitCars
From the same people who revolutionized luxury watch sales with BitDial, BitCars aims to give crypto users access to a network of luxury car dealers all across Europe. These guys were the very first people to swap cars for crypto way back in 2016 and since then, they have become one of the largest online supercar marketplaces.
Buying from BitCars is a refreshingly straight-forward process. They have hundreds of cars already on their marketplace from brands such as Lamborghini, Tesla, McLaren, and Bentley. If you’re looking for something a little more exotic, just email them to get started, and they’ll contact their extensive network of dealers to track down exactly what you’re looking for and get it on their marketplace just for you.
After you’ve negotiated a price, the blockchain part of the deal enters the chat. They accept BTC, ETH, LTC, DCR, DOGE, DOT, USDT, and XMR, with payments handled through ColorCrypto and OpenNode. Once everything is squared, your car will be delivered directly to any location of your choosing. BitCars handles all of the paperwork, logistics, and customs paperwork for you.
2. Mecum Auctions
As the world’s largest collector car auction house, Mecum Auctions was in a unique position to bring crypto to the world of classic cars. To do this, they teamed up with BitPay to facilitate fast and secure payments in all of the most popular cryptocurrencies like BTC, DOGE, ETH, USDC, and more.
Mecum kicked off its crypto career in 2021 with its 34th-annual Original Spring Classic in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, where they auctioned off more than 2,500 classic cars over the course of a week in May. On the list were such iconic cars as Big Oly, which sold for a staggering $1.87 million.
For the time being, Mecum is only accepting crypto for sales at its Indianapolis headquarters, but they can be processed either in-person or online. As a family-run business for decades, the finer details of Mecum’s finances aren’t public record so it’s impossible to know exactly how many transactions they’ve conducted with Bitcoin. However, with a yearly revenue of nearly $10 million, they’re clearly doing something right. Further, the owners have stated that they plan on expanding their crypto offerings in the future, so it seems like it’s been good enough so far.
3. Advantage Cars
This Prague-based auto show is Czechia’s largest luxury car retailer with offerings from Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, and more. Seeing the writing on the wall and listening to feedback from clients, Advantage Cars recently teamed up with CONFIRMO.net to begin accepting BTC payments.
Since then, they have sold Ferraris, McLarens, and Lamborghinis for huge sums of BTC with a Ferrari SF90 Stradale being sold for an astonishing 16.5 BTC (about $440,000 at the time). The company claims that it has already sold cars for a total of nearly $2 million of Bitcoin in the last year leading to the most successful year in the company’s nearly 3 decades in operation.
4. Import Marques
Import Marques is the UK’s premier auto import group specializing in tax-free export sales of such prestigious brands as Aston Martin, Bentley, Rolls Royce, and more with both right-hand drive and left-hand drive models. With more than 20 years of experience navigating the complicated world of red tape that is luxury imports/exports, Import Marques has the knowledge, connections, and resources to find you exactly what you’ve always wanted.
To cater to an increasingly global audience, Import Marques has went with BitPay (you can see that we have an obvious pattern here) to accept BTC, ETH, LTC, USDC, and others. This allows them to handle seamless payments from anyone and get the ball rolling on their end almost immediately. The pricing structure is entirely transparent, without any hidden costs, and encompasses both sea and air freight options, all of which include comprehensive insurance coverage.
As a reputation leader, Import Marques is dedicated to providing top-tier service to trade and dealer clients, ensuring the smoothest and most secure process for purchasing and delivering prestige cars on a global scale. They offer access to the latest European car models, whether readily available in stock or through custom orders tailored to client specifications. Here they’ve also pivoted to specializing into importing and selling EV’s, with the focus being on, you’ve guessed it — Tesla, which goes along with Elon’s progressive stance of the crypto. The only thing that’s missing now is an updated Model 3 “what-to-do-in-a-car-when-charging” catalogue that would also have crypto-based titles in their game library.
5. Carriage Auto Group
As a US-wide online marketplace, Carriage Auto Group found itself in a powerful position to blaze a path to a crypto future. Based out of Gainesville, Georgia, Carriage has been helping put clients in the right car at the right price since 1991. As such, they don’t typically cater to luxury supercar fans but are more focused on the average family.
You won’t find a Lambo or a McLaren here, but you will find the right car for your day-to-day needs. Carriage offers a wide range of leasing and financing options to make sure that anyone can leave with what they came in for. The fact that Bitcoin is one of those options is what really sets these guys apart from their competition, more so if you consider the sensible car segment they’re catering.
At present, Carriage only accepts BTC through Coinbase, and all purchases made with BTC must be in the full amount (you can’t do half-cash/half-crypto) and there are no leasing options available. Even with these small restrictions, Carriage is still unique for helping the average person swap their crypto for a new or used car.
Having gone through these five car dealerships, in the end, no matter what kind of crypto you have or what kind of car you want, you’ve got options. As more and more buyers start demanding blockchain transactions, companies will have no choice but to cater to a changing market, especially if the crypto market stabilizes even further. While the dream of a Lambo still lives on, we’re driving towards a world where crypto can fulfill its role as a truly universal currency.