Leasing a car is a popular choice for those wanting to drive a new vehicle with a minimum of fuss. You don’t own a car at the end of the lease, but ideally, you lower your monthly payment. Plus, you don’t have to worry about selling your car at the end of the lease—you can just lease something new! However, that’s not to say that every lease out there is a peach. One New Jersey dealer recently announced a “lease special” on a new Porsche that is truly anything but.
Brought to our attention by auto writer Zerin Dube on Twitter, the car in question is up for sale or lease at Ray Catena Porsche in Edison, New Jersey. It’s a 2024 Porsche 911 T with the PDK dual-clutch gearbox. The model is a slight jump above the basic 911 Carrera, plus it comes with some lovely yellow seatbelts and decals down the side. This particular example has the rear seats fitted, too; by default, the 911 T eschews them to save weight. In any case, this brand new car is up for sale for $147,410 with only delivery mileage (30 miles) on the clock.
The car was posted to Facebook for the dealership by Thomas Anthony, who also included a rather interesting “lease special.” Outside of taxes and fees due when signing the deal, the lease fee is $2750 a month for 39 months. That includes a far-from-generous allowance of just 2500 miles a year.
Do the math on that, and it’s not exactly the sweetest deal. Ignoring taxes and fees, the monthly charges alone come out to $107,250 over the term of the lease. That’s over two-thirds of the sticker value, right there. Meanwhile, at 2500 miles a year, you’re only allowed to rack up 8125 miles during the 39-month lease period. Running the calculation, you’re limited to less than 7 miles per day. Hope you live close to work!
Interestingly, the deal doesn’t appear under “New Porsche Lease Specials” on the Ray Catena Porsche website. The Autopian has reached out to the dealer regarding the matter.
Other leases on the site come with much healthier mileage allowances. For example, a 39-month lease for a 2024 Porsche 718 Cayman SE costs $1,449 a month and comes with 10,000 miles per year. The monthly fees add up to $56,511 over the lease term, relative to the $94,540 sticker price of the car. You’re also up for $6,288 in fees at signing. It’s still a lot of cash to pay for a car you don’t own, but at least you get enough mileage that you can actually drive it around.
Heck, the currently-advertised Macan lease is a bargain by comparison. Just $899 a month for 39 months and 10,000 miles a year, plus $5,738 upfront. The monthly fees come out to less than half the sticker cost of the vehicle, versus over two-thirds for the 911 T.
In fairness, if this 911 came with even a 5,000 mile-a-year allowance, we probably wouldn’t be writing about it. It’d be expensive, but almost kind of understandable and fairly close to a market rate for these things if you look at other deals. You know, for the wealthy sort of driver who wants to always be swapping out to a fresh ride while not really caring about the fact they’re not getting any equity in a vehicle for their huge monthly payment. But with a mileage limit of just 2,500 miles a year, you’re getting vanishingly little for your money.
In contrast, you could probably just buy a certified pre-owned 911 for a similar payment. It might be a little older, but you’d own the car and you could do whatever you liked to it. Dumb wheels, a stupid wrap, the works. Then, when you grew tired of it, you could sell it, and get a significant amount of money back.
In any case, if you’re rushing out to sign this lease, don’t hesitate to drop me a line telling me why you went for it. I love yellow 911s too, don’t get me wrong, I just don’t think this is quite the “lease special” that it’s being made out to be. Look after your dollars, folks! Or maybe the salesperson just has a different idea of what “special” means.
Image credits: Facebook Marketplace
A facebook post by Thomas Anthony who’s not listed as staff on the dealer website. Seems like it could be a scam.
I’m pretty sure the last few years I haven’t put more than about 2500 miles on my weekend car (sadly), so I could see doing a super low mileage lease like that.
Not for $2750 a month though. Yikes!
What is the over-mileage penalty for this car?
It’d be funny if they didn’t update the contract and uses the $0.25/mile standard rate for VAG leases.
I can imagine all sorts of scenarios where this makes complete sense.
For instance, developer has a brand new condominium building that they’re trying to sell units in and they think that having this car parked conspicuously would make it look like the sort of people that they are trying to sell units to have already started living there. Since it’s a lease, it’s a business expense, you know, marketing, with other people’s money! At the same time, maybe there’s another car at the dealership that catches Mr. condo developers eye. So they work out a deal with one car at an extremely good price and another car at a ludicrously bad price. The dealer gets the car back at the end of the lease having made a little bit of money and not paid for storage, insurance, or maintenance. The customer makes out like a literal bandit.
Oh, and the reason the car is advertised is that although a deal has probably already been made, sometimes the rules are you have to pay fair market value to avoid suspicion of shenanigans, and by definition, an advertised price is fair market value.
Or, of course, maybe they’re just waiting for an unsupervised rich idiot to wander in
The only way I see this making sense is as a business dodge. Lease the car using a business, letting the business absorb the ridiculous expense and then buy it out for much less at lease termination.
I’ll still say that this new 911T variant is more attractive to me than any Porsche I’ve seen in quite some time. Not enough to actually buy one, of course.
Except for the stupid mileage limit this makes sense
I configured a Taycan Sport Turismo GTS online for fun, and looked at payment options. The 36 month lease offer had the same down payment, and was only $100 less per month than the 72 month loan. I guess 50% depreciation in 3 years will do that! At least the mileage was 10 or 12k a year.
For any of these leases, why wouldn’t you just buy and sell at 3 years? Wouldn’t you come out way ahead and your purchase payments aren’t going to be that much more than these leases.
If you lease it for “business use” the lease payments can be fully written off. If you buy, you can only depreciate a certain percent per year unless it counts as a “truck”.
The right lease can be a hedge against the market value in 3 years as well. You at least have a data point that the car is “worth,” the buyout. At 3 years get bids for buying it and/or trading in. Above the buyout, capture the value. Below? Leasing company eats it.
10k mi/yr on a Macan is almost as bad a limit. Sure it’s “only” 2k below the industry-standard but nobody’s looking for one as a “toy” the way they might a 911 or Cayman, it’s a damn crossover, if it’s not the daily-driver what is?
10k is easy daily driver territory for many people who live in urban areas or even many suburbs. That covers a 30 mile round-trip commute on weekdays, 50 miles total on each normal weekend, and 1000 miles for other trips. Also, most people with a Porsche probably have another vehicle, or household member with a vehicle, so the weekend and other trips can be split up some.
10K is a pretty standard “low mileage” lease, even on cheap cars. Intended to advertise a lower monthly payment. They probably have pre-set higher mile offerings for those who need them, or worst case you can just negotiate the miles at the dealer.
I daily drive a lot less than 10k a year……. That’s not a problem for a lot of people.
It’s nice to see things getting back to normal dealership ripping off the public.
There are good leases and bad leases, just like there are good buys and bad buys. This one is solidly in the realm of bad lease. Like, the “math doesn’t even make sense” kind of bad.
I could actually afford to lease that and stay under the mileage for it while driving to work everyday.
So let’s break down what I just said there…. Yes, I could afford the lease. But I never said I could afford the gas for it…. or anything else including food for the month.
As for my commute? I work at home. I suppose I could go fire up the car in the garage (with the garage door down no less) and play on my switch until I pass out (don’t worry… my alarm will wake me back up for work…. I hope).
Like good ol’ PT says… there’s one born every minute.
I would love to be rich and petty enough to take this lease and then just run it into the ground putting a million engine hours in my driveway, then turn it back in to the dealer with 200 miles on the odometer.
I am pretty sure that would just screw over the person who buys this as a CPO in 3 years. The dealer won’t adjust the resale price even if they did notice that the engine had an excessive amount of wear. I don’t think it is likely that the dealer is hoping this comes back pristine so they can buy it back as their forever car. They just want to flip it again.
This comment has Ferris Bueller vibes
Cameron: What’d I do?
Ferris: You killed the car.
I think I’ll swipe left on Lisa Catena.
Would 107k buy the entire autopian staffs fleet of cars?
Maybe take the obvious outlier out though.
Beau substantially throws the curve off.
He’s not exactly staff. If anything, he’s a Bond villain turned good
I guess that’s why he doesn’t live in a volcano. Did SWG sub-lease his volcano from Beau?
It’s reasonable to assume that any Autopian volcano compounds are related to Beau in some way
Ok, so I know I am not the target customer for cars in this price class, but at $13.20 per mile in lease costs alone (plus gas, insurance, etc.) I don’t suppose this will become my daily driver even if I live within 9.6 miles of work and save my 185k mile XJ for fun on the weekends.
(I only work 5 days a week, hence the 9.6 miles per day for commuting)
Anyone wanna play a round of “Build your dream 3 car garage for less than the cost of this low trim 911 lease” with me? 107k goes a long way even in this market…
I’d have a 2 car garage at that point with an X3M and an ND Miata RF
I’d certainly have an ND2 Club in mine, they really are something special, and while you can’t go wrong with the RF or soft top, I’m partial to the soft top since the NC/ND soft top is so easy to to throw up or down. The RF buttresses are gorgeous though
$107k? Pontiac G8 GT, new Prius LE AWD and a Mazda CX-90 seems like a compelling 3 car set that does a little bit of everything
Likewise, a 997 Carrera S, ND Miata, and CPO BMW M340i is on the menu.
I’m pretty sure I could find something for the $2750 monthly payment. That’s only a bit less than I paid for my current car.
That’s literally four times my mortgage payment. Even in this market, I could probably find a house and fill the garage for that monthly payment.
I can understand why they’re asking so much for a lease or even outright purchase on a new 911 T, but at the end of the day, I don’t see why someone would be willing to spend this much on a T with PDK, and back seats added. It’s the “practical” 911 T, which is supposed to be the cheaper sportier option. This one has such a tight mileage restriction that it could only ever be a fun weekend car, but with a PDK, I don’t see why anyone would spend this kind of money. My best guess is there’s a 20k+ markup if you try to outright buy the thing, but who knows.
The 2,500-mile number is purely to preserve the resale value. He’s calculated it in order to ensure (or at least encourage) that the odo doesn’t get over 10 grand.
So he’ll make 107k off the lessor, and then another 100k or more when he sells it. He’s setting himself up for at least a 50k profit.
Getting hold of a new 911 these days is a crap shoot, and an un-spoken-for 911 T more unusual (probably a cancelled order). The T has gotten a lot of great press in every review. So it’s not surprising they’re asking the moon for a lease. Doen’t mean it’s a good deal though.
Scarcity of a valuable commodity promotes greed like almost no other force in human affairs.
I think the buddhists have it right about such things. While this wonderful material possession may appear to promise delight and joy, in fact, it is merely bait on a hook for the unwary.
Curious to know what the buy-out price is at the end of the lease.
I was paying $279/mo (30 mos) on my 2014 ATS4 with a buyout price of something just under $25k, which I thought was a fair deal. I would have probably bought it had I not barrel rolled it like a stunt car in an episode of CHiPs.
Porsche leases in general are pretty bad deals. I’ve toyed with the idea of leasing one a few times since I’m a total Parsh cultist and the numbers never come out favorably. Leasing in general is a bad financial move unless you’re after an EV, in which case it’s the only move you should be making. But other than that? You’re kind of just throwing money away.
I still think the best way to buy a Porsche is to get a certified one. You get a full 2 year warranty after the expiration of the original one or from the date of purchase. Their inspection process is pretty rigorous, all the work is done by Porsche technicians, you can add maintenance plans, and they’ll certify cars as old as 13 years with as many as 120,000 miles or something along those lines…and while the interest rates on financing aren’t amazing they’re still better than what you’d get on a straight up used one.
If you want to save some money on your Parsh I think that’s the best way to do it…but let’s be real here, there’s no such thing as an affordable Porsche.
Would they actually sell that car for MSRP? I have my doubts.
Maybe only if you live locally? That’s a provision I’ve seen other places that stands out here as well.
A PDK 911 T? I’d imagine they’d sell it at MSRP. Most “regular” Porsches sell at retail. It’s the special ones like the GT3, GT4 RS, Speedsters, etc. that people get into bidding wars over. And it makes sense because they tend to hold their value or appreciate.
911 T’s are cool but at the end of the day they’re just a base 911 with some fancy performance equipment from the GT models. I could see them maybe getting over asking if they wanted to be real dicks and it was a manual one, but diehard Porsche people aren’t going to fight over an automatic base-ish 911. They want the manual like 95 times out of 100.
…which is actually great for me because if I ever buy a 911 I’d shamelessly go with the PDK and they depreciate way more 🙂
My local dealer can’t get hold of any 911s other than those specifically ordered unless they’re used – I haven’t seen a new 911 on the floor in a couple of years now. They are a smaller dealership which may account for some of that, but he says there just aren’t that many new 911s unspoken-for around.
Yeah that’s why I thought this might command over MSRP.
Even large Porsche dealers around here have basically zero 911s.
On the flip side, if you’re new to the 911/Porsche world, and want to custom order a higher trim car, I imagine this dealer would stick this on you with a contract along the lines of “you need to build rapport with the brand, buy this at asking, plus this Macan nobody buys, and we’ll give you a 911 Turbo allocation two years from now”
That does seem to be how it works, based on what I’ve read at least. However I’m not certain, because my mega wealthy cousin had never owned a Porsche before and they let him custom order a 911 GTS convertible a couple of years back during the height of the car pandemic car nonsense.
Maybe that model isn’t quite “special” enough to trigger the Porsche dealer nonsense, but then again he paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000 when all was said and done. I sure hope he lets me drive it sometime but I doubt he will and frankly I don’t blame him.
I’m not so sure about that anymore. It may only be anecdotal but my Porsche dealer tells me the take rate on manuals was around 65-70% when he started selling them in the mid 90’s but now that take rate has fallen to about 35-40%.
And he was specifically talking about sports cars, 911 and Boxster/Cayman only, not the newer editions that include Panamera/Macan/Cayenne.
Maybe you’re right about the purists out there but I’m not sure they still number enough to move the needle anymore.
Yeah and now that you mention it I can’t imagine that the current crop of new money customers whose main goal is the flex is exactly rife with 3 pedal drivers.
hmmm, their website doesn’t even list that car in-stock.
Also, the don’t have a Tom Anthony in their “staff” part of the website. HOWEVER, they do have a Tom C, and his Instagram profile pic is the same as the pic of the seller in FB ad.
My guess would be he uses a fake last name on social media. That would not be unheard of.
The kind of thing that builds trust when spending 100k on something would be to use fake names.
Yeah, all of that stuff matches, but if that guy doesn’t want to use that name in his public profile I don’t blame him and it’s not useful to add that information.