As always the Monterey car week is the focus of the collector car universe and the various auctions are the collector car market-makers, defining values and price directions. Looking through the different auction houses online offering, there is a deluge of “big dollar” cars hitting the market over just one week. As database obsessives are wont to do, it’s more than interesting to play with the numbers to understand the big picture and search for the trends.
Gooding has strategically placed their tent at the Parc du Concours in Pebble Beach and, as always, features a cross section of 186 of the most coveted collector cars. Of the 186 lots on offer, 46 lots (or 25%) are at or over the $1 million estimate with an average low estimate of $3.37 million!
If just those 46 lots sold at their low estimate they would bring in $154.95 million in sales.
At the high end of Gooding’s offerings, the 1938 Alfa 8C Lungo Spider s/n 412027 and 250 SWB Cal Spyder s/n 3095 have low estimate of $15 million or more and 250 TDF s/n 0893 GT, 333 SP s/n 010 (engine 027), Maserati Birdcage s/n 2477, Bugatti 57 SC Atalante and 857 Sport s/n 0588 M are all offered with a low estimate or $5 million or more, with several cars offered at much more!
Looking back to the 2023 results, Gooding sold a total of only $95m in 2023 of which 24 lots were all over the $1m mark. It’s easy to see that 2024 will easily blow past 2023’s results.
RM continues to be profitably placed at the Portola Plaza in the heart of downtown Monterey with 202 lots offering something for almost every enthusiast! RM has 53 lots (or 26%) over the $1 million low estimate with an average low estimate of $2.93 million. If these 53 lots all sold at the low estimate they would gross RM $155.25 million, almost exactly matching 2024’s Goodings $1 million plus low estimate offerings.
At the high end RMs matches Goodings with two cars, 250 SWB Cal Spyder s/n 1975 GT and 410 Sport Spyder s/n 0592 with low estimates of $15 million. RM offers six cars at $5m or more, 625 TRC s/n 0680 MDTR; 400 SA SWB Cabriolet s/n 1945 SA; 1995 F50 s/n 1033921; 275 GTB/4 Alloy s/n 10311; 250 LWB Cal Spyder s/n 1217 GT and 2002 F200b s/n 215.
Again, looking back to 2023, RM sold a total of $164 million of all cars with 45 cars over $1mil. RM should easily blow past the 2023 results.
Broad Arrow holds court at the Monterey Jet Center with a broad offering of Europe’s finest starting with a low estimate of $25k for a Morris Minor convertible and topping out with 1997 Porsche 911 GT1 s/n 108 at a low estimate of $8,500,000. A quick count shows 27 cars at or above a low estimate of $1m. Of the 27 offerings only two, the a fore mentioned 911 GT1 and a 1938 Talbot Lago T150 with low estimates over $5m. If all the 27 cars at $1m or more were to sell at their low estimates Broad Arrow would gross $64.55 million with an average low estimate of $3.37!
Again looking back to 2023’s results, Broad Arrow sold $57.5m in total with ten cars over the $1m mark, a number Broad Arrow should easily blow past in 2024.
Bonham’s auction at the Quail offers 143 affordable lots with many at no reserve including 45 lots from the Golden State Muscle Car collection, also all at no reserve. At the high end Bonhams has only 8 offerings at $1m or more, and if all were to sell at the low estimate they would bring in $12.9 million for an average of $1,61 million.
In 2023 Bonham’s sold 412P s/n 0854 for $30,255,000 boosting total sales to $51m, a one-off event not repeatable this year, so a number Bonham’s will not come close to this year.
Just when you begin to think it’s easy to chart the potential sales at Monterey, Mecum makes it difficult because they do not post estimates. Mecum offers a staggering 473 lots at the Hyatt Regency Hotels. A quick walk through Mecum’s website show at least 20 cars that would (or should) sell at or well over the $1m mark. A quick guess would give that group of 20 cars an average low of about $2.0 million.
Running the totals of all potential sales over $1m between Gooding, RM, Broad Arrow, and Bonham’s gives a total of 134 lots at $1 million or more with a potential minimum sales total of $387.65 million. Add in another potential 20 cars at a low of $2m each at Mecum pushes the over $1m mark sales at some number in the $430 million range! Needless to say many of the $1m plus cars will sell for more than their low estimates.
Add in the hundreds of sub-$1 million priced cars gives 2024 potential total sales in the $700- $800 million mark, or more, perhaps much more, and certainly far more than the total of $412 million achieved at RM, Gooding, Bonham’s, Broad Arrow and Mecum in 2023! I doubt if we will get to the magic $1 billion mark, but we’re getting closer!
The question, of course, is how in the Hell is the market supposed to absorb that much expensive machinery? What happens if the market flops and the sales are a disaster? I’ve asked myself the same question for decades – but my worst fears never seem to materialize, and there are always new records being broken and new and younger buyers coming to the table.
Of course one cannot look at “absolute” figures – a million-dollar threshold today, is not the same as a million-dollar threshold 10 years ago. On 28 July 2014 the S&P 500 closed at 1,978.34 – on Friday, 09 Aug., it closed at 5,344.39. A million dollar “investment” car today is really a $360K car of only 10 years ago. You’d have to set the 2024 threshold at almost 3 million for a 10 year “apples-to-apples” comparison.
Going further down the rabbit hole, what if one were to break down the lots by era, charting the ten-year trend of Brass Era cars, or 1920s – 1930s coach-built cars? Or 1950s Ferraris versus 1960s or 1970s Ferraris? Or Enzo-era Ferraris versus the supercar set that includes the 288, F40, F50 and the Enzo? I opine that we are in an all-new era of explosive buying power of newer-younger-different generations, while the “traditional” classics of the “mature” buyers have softened as the baby-boomers age out. Time will give us the answers, by next Monday we will know if a new group of buyers came to the party at Monterey. And then, as we are wont to do, we can analyze those results.
My thanks to Thor Thorson of Vintage Racing Motors, Inc. and Andy Schmidt at Barchetta.cc for their ideas and inspiration.
