Aidan de Cadenet in his Alfa Romeo TZ on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles
Photographer: Joyce Lee for Bloomberg BusinessweekThe Great Wealth Transfer Includes $570 Billion in Classic Cars
For Gen Xers and millennials, inheriting a loved one's car often means weighing nostalgia against practicality.
There’s a reason Alex Roy still has the humble 1973 Citroën SM his brother, Max, left behind when he died of cancer in 2024. They had planned to drive the teardrop-shaped coupé cross-country, honoring the brand that spirited their father and his German Jewish family out of Brussels during World War II.
In 1940 their dad had found a Citroën at an abandoned dealership after a neighbor’s promise to drive the family to France never materialized. “All of the cars were gone except one, an early Citroën no one had stolen, because it was the oldest,” Roy says. “My dad turned the crank, his brother got it started, and they escaped to Paris.”