Every August the collector car world focuses on a single stretch of California coastline: Monterey, California. The live auctions in Monterey always provide a unique gauge of the market, and this year all eyes are on the 5 auctions taking place between August 13-15.
2026 has been a record year nearly everywhere, with auction dollar volume up 32% in the first half alone. But Monterey hasn’t set a record since 2022, when the week produced $469 million. Three Montereys have come and gone without matching it. Will this be the year? Read on for what you need to know.
Monterey by the Numbers
The highest Dollar Volume recorded at Monterey was in 2022, when the five auctions combined for $469 million. Last year came closest to meeting that record – landing $41.4 million short at $427.5 million.
It’s not that fewer cars are crossing the block — sold counts have barely budged (792, 836, 835, 811 over the last four years), while dollar volume has swung 22% over the same stretch. The real mover is the top end: eighteen cars broke $5 million in 2022, and no year since has seen more than twelve. This year’s catalogue, at 1,107 lots, is the smallest since 2022 — and at last year’s sell-through rate, that points to roughly 790 cars sold, which would need an average of about $592,000 each to set a new record. That’s almost exactly what Monterey averaged back in 2022.
Featured Listings
Monterey Listings by Auction
The same 5 auctions houses have been holding events in Monterey over the past 5 years. This year, there is a shake up as Broad Arrow takes over The Quail auction, a fixture long held by Bonhams. Bonhams in turn moves to Laguna Seca for its first sale at the famous circuit, adding a fifth distinct venue to the calendar. While total listings appears to be down year-over-year, we do expect a few last minute additions that should bring the count level with last year, if not a little bit over.
*Note: Mecum’s catalog typically updates daily leading up to the sale – we will update these charts and lists as listings are added.
Use the links below to view each auction in detail:
- Bonhams’ Laguna Seca Auction – August 13
- Broad Arrow’s Quail Auction – August 13-14
- Gooding Christie’s Pebble Beach Auction – August 14-15
- Mecum’s Monterey Auction – August 13-15*
- RM Sotheby’s Monterey Auction – August 13-15
All five auctions, in one searchable list:
Follow the Auctions in Monterey here >
Monterey Listings by Make
Porsche leads on lot count, 152 to Ferrari’s 140 — together over a quarter of everything on offer — but the five most valuable cars at Monterey are all Ferraris. The overall mix is rotating toward European exotica, with share climbing for Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Bugatti and Aston Martin, while Ford, Chevrolet and Mercedes-Benz are all down 25% or more.
The five auction houses aren’t chasing the same cars, either. Mecum accounts for 479 lots — 44.5% of the week — and leads with Chevrolet, claiming 92% of every Chevy at Monterey plus 83% of the Fords. Broad Arrow, Gooding Christie’s and RM Sotheby’s all lead with Porsche, while Bonhams, making its Laguna Seca debut with the smallest catalogue at 56 lots, leads with Jaguar.
% Share designates the total share of listings for that make this year. Green denotes an increase in share compared to last year, while Red denotes a decrease in share compared to last year.
The Cars Are Getting Younger
If you want a single chart that captures how Monterey is changing, this is it.
In 2021, cars built before 1980 made up 73.8% of the catalogue; this year they’re down to 60.3%, while everything from the 1990s on has climbed from 19.8% to 33.6% — a third of this week’s cars were built in the last thirty-five years. The clearest sign: the 2020s went from just fourteen cars in 2021 to 81 this year, now a bigger slice than the entire 1980s.
But it’s not the cars you’d expect giving up ground. Pre-war consignments are dead flat at 169 lots both years — Pebble Beach’s classic end hasn’t thinned at all. The real squeeze is on the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, down 16%, 12% and 27% respectively, the decades that used to fill these catalogues by the hundreds.
Note: This year’s catalogue (1,107 lots) is still smaller than last year’s final count (1,132) at this point, so late consignments could nudge these numbers before auction day — and if they skew modern, as they often do, the shift will look bigger, not smaller, by the time the gavel falls.
Cars with a Track Record
185 cars crossing the block this week have sold at auction before, and the single largest supplier of repeat consignments to Monterey is Bring a Trailer, with 49 cars, ahead of both Mecum and RM Sotheby’s. In fact, 32% of these cars overall were last bought online. However, when you look at the top of the market, that shifts: of the 19 cars that previously sold above $1 million, only two came from an online sale.
Holding periods range from sixteen years down to a fortnight, and five cars changed hands within thirty days of this week’s sales, all under $100,000 — that’s not collecting, that’s inventory turning.
Note: This only reflects the last public sale, since cars often change hands privately between auction appearances more than the record shows.
What We’re Watching
Whether the top end shows up in the room. Live auctions took roughly nine in ten of the market’s seven-figure sales in the first half of 2026, then July inverted it. Monterey is the biggest live venue on the calendar, so this is where the tent proves it still owns the top.
Average price, not the headline total. Throughput barely moves here. Every swing in the week’s total has come from what the cars were worth, so watch the average and the $5M+ count.
Which decades the money chases. Modern hypercars and 1990s icons have been the growth story of 2026. Monterey’s traditional strength is older. Where the bidding gets competitive, era by era, is the clearest read on where the hobby is going.
All five auctions, in one searchable list:
Follow the Auctions in Monterey here >
* A Market on CLASSIC.COM is a grouping of comparable vehicles that have, at a minimum, the same Make, Model, and Model Generation. When relevant for purposes of valuation, a Market may be further segmented by Model Variant, Trim, Transmission Type, Body Style, and other factors.
** The CLASSIC.COM Market Benchmark (CMB) is a benchmark value for vehicles in a given Market based on data accumulated by CLASSIC.COM and calculated by a proprietary algorithm that takes into account volume and recency of each data point. CMB can be used to assess the performance of a market over a given time period. However, it does not represent the value of a specific vehicle.
Catalog figures are as of publication and will change as consignments are added and withdrawn. Historical Monterey figures cover the Monterey, Quail, Pebble Beach and Laguna Seca sales.
