News Source: autoblog.com

Go to a big auction put on by Barrett-Jackson, RM, or Mecum, and you'll see someone's "dream car" sold about every two minutes. Playing in the big leagues often nets you the most rare, most desirable, and best-condition cars that money can buy. Deals can be had at auctions of course, but it's a system that seem best suited to delivering high-value vehicles to high-dollar buyers.

Meanwhile, eBay is a bit more egalitarian. Dealerships have long since caught on to using the listing site as a marketing tool, but real-person owners transact with real-person buyers everyday.

I'm an inveterate eBay browser, as are many of my fellow editors. What better way to pass the time while eating lunch than to check out prices of twin-turbo Supras, right? With that mindset, I polled the Autoblog team about which cars they dreamed about when they were young (and some slightly older), and set about figuring some average eBay-based values. Using recent data for completed auctions, looking at both sold and unsold cars (with listed Buy It Now prices), what came back was an interesting data set.

The numbers are hardly what I'd call "clean." I did my best not to factor in prices asked or gotten for non-running cars, and to avoid duplicate listings/sales. But the results were never what I expected, frankly, which makes the digging all the more fun.

Acura NSX

Average Buy It Now Price: $61,063
Average Sold Price: $35,056

With only 21 individual examples to work from, these averages are far from rock-solid predictors of price. What does seem evident is that sellers want more than buyers are willing to spend right now. There were only seven sold cars in the last month, and those pre-facelift examples with far more reasonable stickers.

Owning a early 1990s NSX has been an aspiration of mine since the car debuted. If you're like me, it seems that the time to buy is soon. Paying $30k-ish could prove a great investment, as well as netting a killer car. An icon of the Dot Com generation isn't likely to soften in value anytime soon.

Porsche 911 Turbo (930)

Average Buy It Now Price: $118,465
Average Sold Price: $110,833

The 911 Turbo is still hugely revered, and it was the second-engined iteration, the 3.3-liter 930, that kids my age saw on TV and in the movies. As it did it the 1980s of its heyday, the Turbo still commands cash.

The 911s of the 1960s might still be the aims of rich Porsche purists, but the market for this Turbo is obviously strong. Buy It Now and sold prices are pretty close. You can still find driveable cars in the $50,000 range, but asking prices for almost every example have climbed into six figures.

Dodge Viper

Average Buy It Now Price: $33,827
Average Sold Price: $26,398

I stuck with the first-generation of Dodge's Viper for this exercise, that being the car that caused most of us to fall in love (Tim Allen notwithstanding). Selling on average in the mid-$20k range, Viper passes the ever-popular "I could buy it for the price of a new Camry" test. Powerful stuff.

The Viper never sold in volumes like the Chevy Corvette, so it's unlikely that any generation will see super-bargain prices for good quality examples. Then again, there aren't nearly so many die-hard fans competing for the best cars, either.