These Are The Rarest Cars You’ve Ever Seen In Person

There are entire catalogs of cars we wish that we could see in the flesh. However, those desired machines had extremely limited production runs or weren’t available for sale in the United States. A car doesn’t have to be a boutique hypercar or valued at over $3 million to be rare. Poor build quality could have severely limited a model’s lifespan.

We asked our readers earlier this week for the rarest cars they have ever seen in person. The response was, to say the least, understandably varied. Some commenters have spotted classic econoboxes that are somehow still pristine despite decades on the road. Others have seen equipment intended to land Americans on the Moon’s surface. Spacecraft weren’t the only vehicles submitted to be truly out of this world. There were also wild concepts that never made it into production. Without further ado, here are the rarest cars our readers laid eyes on:

I saw the Lunar Lander in a museum; there can’t be too many of those built and still on Earth.

Submitted by: DTEL77

I grew up near a tiny town in Virginia that’s home to an antique car restoration business. One day about 30 years ago I was driving home from work and saw a Stout Scarab in the parking lot. I got a better look at it a little while later while they were working on it.

Submitted by: Affenschmidt

I live and work pretty close to the Triple F Collection, so I’ve seen the majority of their collection up close over the past few years (Senna, Sabre, P1, Bugattis, etc.) Also saw an EB 110 at one of their shows, one of my favorite cars growing up.

My uncle had a DeTomaso Mangusta for years when I was growing up and it was one of like 400 made I think. Still think about that car to this day.

Submitted by: Fiji ST

My mother-in-law’s boyfriend has a pretty big car collection, which includes a Countach. Unfortunately, being a boomer, he replaced the V12 with a Chevy 350 smh.

He also has two AMXs with 390s which are pretty cool!

Submitted by: manbearpig

1971 Dodge Polara 4-door sedan. With a factory 426.

So, in 1970, Dodge got a Superbird over 200 mph average for a lap. To celebrate, they wanted to give one to Buddy Baker. He didn’t want it; he wanted a 4-door full-sized sedan for his family. However, Dodge wanted to give him something with a 426 Hemi and a 4-speed. A compromise was made and Buddy got a Polara with a 426 and a 4-speed. Dodge actually made two. One was used to make sure everything fit and to tune the engine to be more in fitting with a family sedan. That one was given to the chief engineer of the project, who I met in the early 2000s. He was still daily driving his factory elephant Polaris. It was in typical daily-driver shape for being 30 years or so old.

Submitted by: hoser68

Chrysler Turbine Car that was on display at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. It has stood out in my mind all these years later because they had a nickel balanced-on-edge, while the engine was idling. Only 55 of these cars were ever made.

Submitted by: George Z

Lots of rare or one-off cars in museums around the world, but the rarest on the road was a Mercedes AMG One last year on the street in Charlotte.

Submitted by: bootska

I’ve seen some pretty rare cars, but the ones I can distinctly remember as rare (other than hypercars like the Chiron, Regera, Huayra, Battista, and some old Ferraris) are pretty “boring” examples.

I’ve seen two separate R63 AMGs both in for service, each one of ~50 in the US market. Also got to see a legit brand new AMG GT Project One edition, which were allocated to customers who ordered the AMG One (275 planned production) as a “sorry for the delay” gesture. They’ve got a crazy paint job and I’m not sure if everyone that ordered a One bought the GTR so it’s probably the rarest I’ve seen in the world.

Submitted by: Wantsamanuelalpharomero

I saw a mint-condition Ford Tempo a couple months ago, in a city that uses salt on the roads!

Submitted by: badrear