Hollywood actor Nicolas Cage Wednesday bought the star of a sale of 10 exotic sports cars that the late Shah of Iran once rode around Swiss and Iranian mountain roads, auctioneers Brooks Europe said.

Cage bought the red Lamborghini Miura SVJ, for a whopping $450,000, bidding by telephone at the auction, which had provided a vivid reminder of the shah's enormous wealth and excess.The Lamborghini was built to Muhammad Reza Pahlavi's special order and secretly delivered to his St. Moritz chalet for a ski vacation before Christmas 1971.

With fewer than 1,864 miles on the clock and with its original studded snow tires for skiing trips, it was first flown to the Iranian Embassy in Rome, checked by the shah's guards for bombs and bugs and then taken to Switzerland.

The Hollywood actor, who won an Oscar last year for his role in "Leaving Las Vegas," has a passion for cars and is reported to already own another Lamborghini, a Rolls-Royce and a Porsche.

"This is crazy. This price is too high. It seems the heat is back on the market," said Waldemar Glasman, a German dealer, about the depressed market for classic and vintage cars.

Most of the cars, owned by the shah at the height of his powers and stored carefully since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, had not been seen in public since he himself last drove them.

They were only a tiny fraction of his staggering collection of some 3,000 cars, including more than 2,000 Mercedes Benz saloons and Range Rovers.

Ironically, the sale by Britain's Brooks auctioneers had the feel of a secondhand car sales pitch. "Low mileage, good condition, usability, affordability," said a leaflet distributed at the auction.

The cars, along with other riches, including jewelry, art, treasures and planes, were left behind when the shah fled Iran in January 1979 at the controls of his Boeing 707.

After he died of cancer in Egypt in July 1980, 10 low-mileage cars including a selection of Rolls-Royces, a Cadillac, a Daimler and a metallic green 1974 Ferrari presented by Jordan's King Hussein were hidden in a warehouse.

About five years ago, they were sold in one lot to a secretive collector from the United Arab Emirates.

Legend has it that the shah drove his sports cars at over 125 mph through Iran's narrow, winding mountain roads or around Swiss ski resorts. Empress Farah was so scared that she had to close her eyes, according to one book about the family.