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5. Porsche 916 – $3 million
We are all familiar with the Porsche 911. The Porsche 916, not so much. In the cult of Porsche, the 916 is the rarest of models and one of the rarest cars in the world today. Only 11 of the 916 models were built in 1972, all of them prototypes. And among the 11 cars made, only one was shipped to the United States. It is now housed at the Automobile Atlanta Museum in Marietta, Georgia. What doomed the Porsche 916 was its price. With a retail tag of $14,000 (a lot of money in the early 1970s), it was eventually decided that the 916 model would be too expensive to attract buyers and the project was scraped after the prototypes were made.
The head honchos at Porsche decided to focus instead on the 911 model, which sold for $10,000 at the time, and the rest, as they say, is history. Still, it is a shame that the 916 never got off the ground. The car had a top speed of 145 miles per hour, which made it the fastest Porsche ever at the time. It was also the lightest Porsche and featured stiffer springs than the 914 and 911 models, as well as pressurized shocks, four-wheel vented disc brakes and sway bars at the front and rear. It has sold for $3 million to private buyers in recent years.
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