• Tesla's earliest cars have shot up in price in recent years.

• That's thanks to the "star power" of the Tesla brand and the significance of the Roadster to electric-car history.

• Tesla only made around 2,450 Roadsters from 2008-2012.

When a little California upstart named Tesla Motors released a limited-production, electric sports car in 2008, nobody could have predicted that the same company would someday be the most valuable carmaker in the world and be credited with sparking the electric-vehicle revolution.

Now Tesla's earliest cars are becoming hot collectibles, skyrocketing in price in recent years as Elon Musk's empire has exploded.

Tesla made roughly 2,450 Roadsters between 2008 and 2012, selling them for around $100,000 and up. The quirky two-door convertibles depreciated over time, with one changing hands for $38,000 on the car-auction site Bring a Trailer in 2018.

What a difference a few years makes. According to Hagerty, an insurance firm for classic cars, Roadster values have nearly doubled in the last two years, rising from an average of $69,000 in May 2020 to $127,000 this year. That's based on values provided by owners looking to insure their vehicles and largely reflects what they paid.

Some examples with particularly low mileage or desirable options have raked in much more than that. In January, a 2011 Roadster 2.5 Sport sold for $190,000. In May, someone paid $212,000 for one of the first 100 Roadsters built.

The run-up in prices lined up with a pandemic-induced frenzy in the collector-car market as enthusiasts turned to their vehicles as an escape, Brian Rabold, vice president of automotive intelligence at Hagerty, told Insider. A sexy, quick, and fun-to-drive car that's become an important piece of EV history, the Roadster also has a distinct appeal among fans of Tesla and of the wider electric-car movement, he said.

"It was Tesla's first product, so it has that special place in history. As Tesla's fortunes have grown and as it's become the company that it is today, a lot of that gets rooted back to the Roadster," he said.