By Ken Gross

Behind closed doors in Playboy's fantasy garage, you'll discover five seductive roadsters that turn heads like a Vermeer at an arts-and-crafts fair. Take a close look. You won't see their like again.

The roadster is the ultimate sports car, an open-air auto built for speed with a cockpit for two, and the models designed during the 1950s and 1960s set high-water marks for style and performance. The cars we've photographed here are the finest postwar two-seaters. (Disagree? Write us, please, and include photos.) These aren't just trophy cars; they're masterpieces you want to command on the pavement. Today intrusive electronics have excised most of the skill and fun out of motoring. Not so with these. The gas pedal is directly linked to the carburetors. When you shift the gears, you can hear them connect, and you must shift them well. Skilled input is rewarded with animated response.

The value of these cars in dollars (and yen and euros) has appreciated over time, but for us that's not the point. The glittering wheels, the throaty growl of a powerful engine, the perfection of a hood line, the ability to attack a twisty road with an exhaust note booming off the hillsides -- that's what we love about these roadsters. If only there were more of them to go around.

Photography by Richard Izui