Sotheby’s Wants You to Buy Classic Cars, and They’ll Lend You Millions to Make It Happen

The wealthy have been splashing out large amounts of cash on flamboyant sports cars and elegant saloons since the early 1900s. For decades, buyers have also been borrowing to get classic cars, using specialty lenders like Greenwich, Conn.-based Putnam Leasing, whose CEO, Steven Posner, told Robb Report that the company’s open-end leases are, “just an alternate way of obtaining a collector car that you want to own, using our money to buy the car and to make payments on it.”

Another specialty lender, Sotheby’s Financial Services (SFS) offers similar services but with a new twist, lending money for classic cars based on collateral that a collector is already deeply familiar with: their existing car collection.