If you're tired of being tossed around by the up-down-sideways stock market, get a sporty collector car.

You won't lose money with such an auto if you treat it right, and changes are good you'll make a decent -- and possibly an outrageous -- profit if you decide to sell it.

All collector cars aren't sporty. An imposing 1930s Cadillac with a 16-cylinder engine was elegant, whereas something like a supercharged 1937 Cord V-8 convertible was downright sporty.

Here are some of the sportiest autos from past decades and their estimated values. Most prices here are over the moon, but some aren't.

1967-69 ALFA ROMEO TIPO 33/2 STADALE ($1 MILLION AND UP): If this gorgeous, low-slung fiberglass body car -- Alfa's second mid-engine auto -- seems to cost a lot, consider that you could have bought one of the 18 built (to certify it for racing) for $650,000-$680,000 in 2005.

1970 AMC REBEL MACHINE ($14,500): Nobody really took muscle cars from defunct American Motors Corp. seriously until fairly recently. But the mid-size Rebel coupe finally is getting its day in the sun. It had a big 390-cubic-inch V-8 with 340 horsepower hooked to a four-speed manual transmission and such items as a hood scoop, sport suspension and patriotic red, white and blue plaint scheme. Quite the dude, this one.

1960-63 ASTON MARTIN DB4GT ZAGATO (MILLIONS AND MILLIONS): The classic car price guides simply say "value not estimable,'' which means you better be Ralph Lauren or Donald Trump before you even consider one of the 19 built. In 2005, this Aston was valued at $2 million to $3 million, and is worth far more now. It was a special high-performance British Aston with a voluptuous body by Italy's famous Zagato exotic car design outfit. Some feel it's the most desirable Aston road/racing model ever built. It had a 314-horsepower engine, which whisked it to 153 mph. Even James Bond had to settle for a regular 1963-65 Aston Martin DB5.

1935 AUBURN 851 "BOATTAIL" SPEEDSTER ($161,000): This is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful cars of all time -- and only sold for $2,245 in 1935. It was styled by the legendary Gordon Buehrig, engineered by August Duesenberg (of Duesenberg fame) and directed by talented Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg president Harold Ames. It resembled a classic, fast 1930s watercraft with its tapered tail and pontoon fenders. Its supercharged inline eight-cylinder engine generated 150 horsepower, when the sensational "hot'' new Ford V-8 produced 90 horsepower.

1952-55 BENTLEY R-TYPE CONTINENTAL ($180,000): James Bond drove a Bentley (at least in the Bond adventure books) before he got an Aston Martin in the movies. This hand-built Bentley had a sleek four-seat coupe body with exquisite lines and a sloping rear end. It could do 90 mph all day with its strong six-cylinder engine. Only 208 were built.

1966-69 BIZZARRINI ($165,000): Italian Giotto Bizzarrini, who did great work for Ferrari and Lamborghini, built this sleek, child-high, 145-mph sports car, which looks like nothing else. Bizzarrini gave it a powerful Chevrolet Corvette V-8 for reliability, although he had designed the Lamborghini V-12 engine used for more than 40 years. About 100 Bizzarrinis were built.

1953 BUICK SKYLARK ($99,750): The baby of General Motors' flamboyant styling chief Harley Earl, this rakish convertible had a lowered windshield and bodysides, two-tone leather upholstery, all sorts of power accessories when such accessories weren't common -- and gorgeous Kelsey-Hayes chrome wire wheels. It highlighted Buick's first modern V-8, which allowed easy high-speed cruising. Buick only built 1,690 of these Skylarks, but that was enough to make it immortal.

1990-95 CHEVROLET CORVETTE ZR-1 ($23,500-$30,750): This was the only Corvette to have an exotic, virtually hand-built V-8 with dual overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder. Partially designed by England's Lotus race/sports car outfit, it had 375 horsepower and let the ZR-1 do 0-60 mph in 4.5 seconds and hit 175 mph. The body was widened at the rear to accommodate Goodyear's first 35-series street performance tires.

1969 DODGE CHARGER DAYTONA ($100,000-$175,000): Adding a special streamlined front end and outrageous rear spoiler sitting three feet above the trunk made this special Charger so aerodynamic that it let Dodge dominate the late 1969 NASCAR race season, winning 80 per cent of the races it entered. Dodge had to build 500 street versions to qualify it for NASCAR. The more expensive version comes with a 426-cubic-inch Hemi V-8 generating 425 horsepower, while the lower-priced version has a strong 440-cubic-inch V-8 with 375 horsepower. One problem, though, is garaging it with the high rear spoiler.

1986 DODGE OMNI GLH-S ($3,000-$5,000): The Omni was a small economy car, but legendary race car builder Carroll Shelby, who was hired to give Dodges more sex appeal, got 175 horsepower from the Omni's four-cylinder engine with a turbocharger and other modifications. This model also had lots of black trim and a sport suspension. Shelby said the GLH-S was as fast as the much costlier Ferrari 328 of the day. A car magazine staged a dual between those two cars. The GLH-S won.

1957-59 FORD FAIRLANE 500 SKYLINER ($28,250): This was the first mass-produced car with a retractable hardtop, which was sensational for its time. The roof originally was to be used for the exclusive Lincoln Continental Mark II, but that short-lived car lacked the volume to justify the special top's production costs. Skyliner sales were fairly decent, but it was discontinued mostly because technology hadn't arrived yet to make the top totally reliable.

1973 PONTIAC FIREBIRD TRANS AM SD-455 ($40,000): Just about everyone thought the wild Detroit muscle car era was long gone by 1973 -- everyone except Pontiac. It offered the wild-looking Trans Am SD-455 with a specially modified, hand-assembled 455-cubic-inch "Super Duty'' V-8. Officially rated at 310 horsepower, car buffs agreed that the engine generated about 370 horsepower. The SD-455 lasted through 1974, but then vanished forever.