Low-mile Corvette stunner one of many at Florida auction

Sometimes we have to wonder about the rationality of those who squirrel low-mileage cars away for decades.

It leads us to ask, why? Why make so much of an investment in a car if its very intention is not to be driven? Why buy a flashy sports car and let it sit there, forgotten? To let a car -- much less a desirable sports car, whose inherent design is even more focused on driving -- sit over 60 years and deny it its only designed function in life? well, it seems like an insane thing to do.

The Lambrecht Chevrolet episode reflected this madness, and so do some of the cars up for sale at the Auctions America Fort Lauderdale Sale. The affliction is how you end up with things such as a Marlboro Maroon 1967 Chevrolet Corvette 427 with just 5,900 miles on the odometer -- one of the lowest-mileage examples of a Sting Ray ever. It's how we get another Corvette, an even older, lower-mileage example -- a 1954 with just 1,370 miles. The early 'Vette arrives via "long term ownership in a well-known private collection," according to Auctions America, and comes with full documentation from the day it was delivered through the days it spent not being driven.

Auctions America
A Heritage Edition Ford GT with just 81 miles will probably break GT sales records.

We predict that those hallowed gems of Corvette history will sell for brain-melting amounts of money. But so will the two Ford GTs, one a 2005 and one a 2006, with odometers that barely register the distance to the dealer lot's edge. Take, for example, the 2005 GT, red with white stripes and only 346 miles on the odometer. Or the GT Heritage Edition with just 81 miles -- put it in the hands of anyone on staff and it'd have doubled its mileage by lunchtime, possibly necessitating two sets of tires and a transmission rebuild in the process. Fortunately, being a car made within the past decade, parts can still be sourced without transactions involving one's firstborn child.

Among the 450 vehicles set for the auction block, others of note include a freshly restored 1973 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona, a pair of late-'60s/early-'70s Mustangs, and a 1935 Hudson Terraplane that Johnny Depp drove in Michael Mann's gangster opus "Public Enemies."

The auction kicks off in Fort Lauderdale the weekend of March 14-16 at the Broward County Convention Center. Tickets are $10, or a weekend pass for $25. You may pay for the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge.

By Blake Z. Rong