Less than one year after three of his beloved vintage cars went up in flames along with his $2 million Johnston home, Dave Walters has already replaced those vehicles and bought three more. And oh, yes, work is coming along nicely on the 11-car garage at his new house to hold his current collection of eight automobiles, which Walters figures is worth about $1.5 million.

“I like fast cars, and I like the way they look,” says Walters, whose collection includes a 1967 Shelby GT 500 “Super Snake.” One of about 75 like it in the world, the 725-horsepower beauty was built for him by racing legend Carroll Shelby. “I grew up in the ‘60s and I started out with high-power cars and I’ve had them all my life.”

Walters’ collection of cars, each of which could be mistaken for brand-new Detroit metal off the showroom floor with, ahem, a shot of automotive steroids, includes rarities like a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda with a 426 Hemi engine, a 1970 Chevelle 454 L56 and a 1968 Dodge Charger 383.

You don’t have to look far to find avid automobile collectors in Central Iowa, and once the bug bites, there’s no such thing as having too may cars.

“I think many guys’ fantasy is to have the perfect car, and especially one that’s semi-collectible,” said Bob Brown, a West Des Moines ophthalmologist who has owned seven Porsches, at least four Jaguars, three collectible Corvettes, a half-dozen BMWs and three Ferraris.

“I always say, the best car you’ve ever owned is the next one you’re going to get,” Brown said. “The hope is what’s fun.”

His next car?

“My current project is looking for a 1997 330GTC Ferrari, which is a 12-cylinder Ferrari,” he said. “They made 599 of them over a three-year period.” He’s already scouted a couple of potential finds through the Ferrari Market Letter.

“I take about every car journal there is,” Brown said. “I review them to see what’s hot, especially with older cars. At the time I was in the Porsche Club, I subscribed to its magazine, Panorama. You’re always looking for the ideal cream puff that’s going to hold its value. I almost always buy used — never new — sports cars.”

Other collectors, like retired attorney Bill Unger, opt for particular niches within the car world. Unger’s passion is British cars.

“That’s the only thing I really had an interest in,” said the Urbandale resident, who bought his first collectible, a 1958 Austin Healey Sprite, in 1991. “The shape and the style really appeal to me.”

The tiny convertible, which took years of work by Unger to recondition, is “very agile, but not the fastest car in the world,” he said. “It was built as a poor man’s alternative to more expensive cars like Jaguars and bigger Austin Healeys.”

He’s found most of his cars by word-of-mouth, though one, a 1954 Triumph Renown limousine, he found on a car club’s Web site and drove out to Cincinnati to look at it. Buying it would take another six months of negotiation, however.

Buying fixer-uppers may not be the most economical way to collect classic vehicles, “but for me, it’s an entertaining way to do it. It forces you to understand the car both mechanically and historically,” Unger said.

Taking road trips with other couples is part of the fun of owning cars like the little Healey, he said. He and his wife recently drove the back roads to Galena, Ill., with four other couples in their British miniatures for a bed-and-breakfast and antique shop jaunt.

“They’re capable of highway traffic, but they’re also 50 years old, so you have to baby them a little so you can make it back,” he said. “It’s a little more comfortable to cruise at 50 with the top down – and stop for ice cream along the way.”

The friends he’s made across the country as a collector are just as important as the cars for Noel Friday, who’s in his 50th year in the insurance business in Osceola. His tastes in cars run to the antique classics, from his 1911 Cadillac Gentleman’s Roadster to his 1951 English Daimler, one of just 19 that were shipped to North America.

Friday drives about 55,000 miles a year across the country to attend swap meets and to keep in touch with fellow hobbyists. He and his wife have driven 33 times to Hershey, Pa., for the Antique Automobile Club of America’s annual swap meet, for instance.

“I’m not much to show cars, but I like to keep them up in show condition, and we like to drive them,” he said. He’s owned as many as 10 collectibles at a time, among them five 1936 Cadillacs, and a 1931 Cadillac V-16 Town Car with an open chauffeur’s compartment that was once owned by legendary filmmaker D.W. Griffith. His current collection of seven vehicles includes a 1935 Cadillac V-12 convertible sedan

What’s next?

“We’re probably going to leave for the East Coast soon and pick up another car,” he said.

For Walters, like most collectors, that itch is always there.

“If I see something I really, really like, I’ll buy it,” he said. “If it’s really rare and appeals to me, I’ll probably step up and buy it. I may go to 10 or 12 cars, depending on what’s out there. You can only concentrate on so many of them at a time.”