Top 10 Cars of 2011-2012 Classic Car Auctions

Auction house: RM Auctions | Sale price: $6.45 Million

The rest of our picks are from auctions held in the United States, but how could we not include this stunning top-seller from Monaco, one of just two 625 TRCs ever built, both of which were specially ordered by legendary West Coast Ferrari distributor and race-car driver Johnny von Neumann? Although the original 2.5-liter 4-cylinder engine was swapped out for a V12 in this vehicle, auctioneers included the old powerplant in the sale, just in case the new owner wanted to return the TRC to its vintage glory.

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Auction house: Barrett-Jackson | Sale price: $2.91 million

With just 51 Tucker cars built before the company famously imploded, and only 47 still accounted for, a "Torpedo" sighting always makes waves, with prices for this legendary sedan starting at $200,000. Automotive designer and entrepreneur Preston Tucker's tragic, folk-hero status alone would command attention from nostalgic buyers, but the car itself was a technological marvel decades ahead of its time. It was a fuel-injected, rear-engine, rollbar-reinforced pioneer whose central, "cyclops eye" headlight swiveled where the driver steered. That third, roving light has made this sedan impossibly distinctive, and as bold as its doomed inventor.

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Auction house: RM Auctions | Sale price: $3.3 million

A century after its release, this is the last 1912 Oldsmobile Limited left on the planet. Consequently, it sold for nearly double the estimated value. For its time, this genuinely limited model — fewer than 140 were built — was a beast, with a 60-horsepower 6-cylinder engine, 42-inch wheels and room for five passengers. This car was put on the auction block complete with a spare mounted on the driver's-side door, in case you got a flat and couldn't find a tow truck with World War I-era tires in stock.

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Auction house: Barrett-Jackson | Sale price: $1.46 million

Proof that not all concept cars get relegated to the musty off-site storage spaces of history, this one-of-a-kind creation — a body by famed Italian automotive-design firm Ghia, mated to a Chrysler Imperial chassis — topped its auction, selling for nearly $1.5 million. In true concept fashion, it's an utterly beautiful and completely odd ride, inordinately long for a coupe, with a rear window that slides away, like a sunroof for the back of your head.

Bing Images: De Soto Adventurer

Auction house: RM Auctions | Sale price: $962,500

Car auctions are filled with the eerie allure of borderline impostors, vintage cars that were entirely reconstructed from graveyards of rusted hulks. This dual-cowl phaeton is weirder still. It existed only as an illustration — showing the kind of custom car Cadillac hoped to build to order, but didn't — until a restorer decided to create one in the 1980s, crafting his own interpretation of a "car that could have been" over the bones of an existing Sixteen Series 90 7-passenger limousine.

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Auction house: RM Auctions | Sale price: $781,000

Ferraris are the roses of the auction circuit, as reliably red, ubiquitous and timeless. Take this 1991 F40, for instance. It isn't exactly a vintage-era find, but it is iconic in its own right and once belonged to automotive royalty Lee Iacocca. Though built for performance, with a midmounted, twin-turbocharged V8 engine that wrangled nearly 500 horsepower and could hit 60 mph in 3.9 seconds, this particular car was a trophy from the start, with fewer than 100 miles on it.

View Pictures:  Vintage Ferraris

Auction house: Russo and Steele | Sale price: $687,500

Like Ferraris, Corvettes are a constant presence at auctions. This one is a rarity, however; it's one of just 216 L-88s produced over three years. The L-88 racing package was only marginally intended as a consumer product. It was offered as a factory option in order to qualify the car for racing events, and only 20 were built in 1967. Its victories at Daytona and Sebring, and its unmistakable profile and 550-horsepower V8 engine, have cemented it as the platonic ideal of the venerable Corvette.

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Auction house: Barrett-Jackson | Sale price: $121,000

During seven seasons, the TV series "Dukes of Hazzard" deployed — and sometimes destroyed — a small army of Dodge Chargers. Of the more than 300 General Lees that appeared on the show, this was the original. Called, appropriately, "Lee 1," the car had a short career in Hollywood: one 82-foot-long leap over a police cruiser in the opening chase scene of the series' inaugural episode. Though it was restored to its "pre-jump" condition, we're guessing that, sadly, the doors aren't painted shut.

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Auction house: Barrett-Jackson | Sale price: $97,900

Auctions aren't all about supercars, horseless carriages and the millionaires who collect them like Hot Wheels toys. There are trucks, too, lots of them, ranging from wacky 1950s-era custom jobs to stoic cargo-haulers such as this top-selling (among trucks) Chevrolet Coe. The late-model General Motors chassis isn't original, and neither is the air conditioning or 6-speaker CD-playing stereo, but we can't begrudge you wanting some creature comforts as you thunder up to your favorite nightclub or when you turn moving-day into a class act.

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Auction house: Barrett-Jackson | Sale price: $9,900

Finally, there's an Edsel. For most auction buyers, owning an impeccable 1955 Mercedes-Benz Gullwing is about as feasible as picking up a restored space shuttle. Instead, they collect cars such as this Edsel Corsair coupe, legendary under its heap of scorn, and in need of restoration, but more interesting than the legions of Camaros and Chargers it's crammed between. Despite the brand's notoriously botched launch and quick demise — production ceased in 1960 — maybe, in hindsight, this ugly duckling is a swan. Or maybe it's still hideous, and that's precisely the point.

Bing Images: Edsel Corsair

Based out of the Boston area, Erik Sofge is frequent contributor to Popular Mechanics and Slate.com. He specializes in everything scientific and technical.

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