Owning a piece of automobile history may give you more than the pleasure of driving around in olden style.
Classic, usually luxury, cars, have fetched millions in auctions in recent years, a good investment for the lucky few who sold them.
According to Money SuperMarket.com, the classic-car industry offered a 28% return over the past year.
MoneySuperMarket put together a graphic showing the highest public-auction car sales of all time and how such sales were distributed across the years, which revealed a peak in the past couple of years.
The most expensive cars were usually developed around 1960. Vintage Ferraris commanded top prices, and the most expensive car ever sold in an auction was a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, sold in 2014 for $38.12 million.
That car, currently valued at $38.56 million, was the second 250 GTO to be built, and one of fewer than 40 to ever be made.
Other top sales included a 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 a Formula One racing car, which sold in 2013 for nearly $29.6 million and currently is worth about $30.4 million. A 1955 Jaguar D-Type sold last year for $21.8 million.
No. 4 top sale was a 1932 Bugatti Royale, sold in 1987 for $9.8 million and currently worth more than double that. The fifth top sale involved a 1939 Alfa Romeo, sold in August for $19.8 million. Representing American car makers further down the list, a 1968 Ford GTO comes in at No. 8 with a price tag in 2012 of $11 million; it’s currently valued at $11.5 million. And in 16th place, a 1950 GM Futurliner sold in 2006 at $4.3 million and has since increased in value to $5.1 million.
