There is no better time to be a wealthy car enthusiast than today. With our surplus of cheap horsepower, it's hard to spend six figures on a car and not get more than 500 horses. On the flip side, this means half your country club has more turbochargers than mistresses, so showing up with a brand-new Porsche 935 will be met with rolling eyes and reactions of took you long enough. So why not upstage all the collar-poppers by buying something even more powerful, more exclusive, and with more pedigree? Cue in a historic Baldwin steam locomotive.

eBay Bessemer & Lake Erie 643

What a time to make such a suggestion, because one such loco just surfaced for sale on eBay of all places. As all the foamers out there can tell you, this is a Baldwin Locomotive Works 2-10-4 "Texas" steam engine, one of six such locomotives known to still exist, and the only example used by the Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad to be preserved, rather than scrapped. Converting locomotives' tractive effort figures into horsepower isn't particularly straightforward, but this 899,000-pound behemoth could produce at least 5,700 horsepower at 40 miles per hour according to Railroad Artifact Preservation Society, a figure accurate for a 1930-spec version of this locomotive operated by another railway. Being a 1944 rendition of the same design, it stands to reason that the 643, as this locomotive was numbered, produces at least as much power.

eBay Bessemer & Lake Erie 643