The Big Story
Monterey Car Week Auction Results
Market analysts in the UK watch the sales at Monterey Car Week with interest because they take the classic market’s pulse
Six auction houses (Gooding & Company, RM- Sotheby’s, Bonhams, Mecum, Russo & Steele and Worldwide Auctioneers) managed a 58 per cent sale rate on 9-18 August; RM Sotheby’s set three British classic price records for a pair of special Aston Martin DB5s and a McLaren F1 ‘LM’ road car. Number-crunching other results showed a market willing to pay over the odds for the very best or unusual. Otherwise, vendors were having to re-evaluate their asking prices. CCW’s auction expert, Richard Hudson-Evans, said: ‘They had to step back and realise that while cars would sell, they’d have to be realistic.
‘Sellers this year experienced a market in correction, where overinflated prices finally came down.’
An average $114,559 (£93,938) more was spent per car in sales during 2018’s Monterey Car Week; prices of cars sold at this year’s sales were, on average, 26 per cent down.
Cars had to be sensational to set records at all in a cooling market and Sotheby’s Thunderball- specification DB5, with fully working, properly-engineered Bond gadgets made $6.39m (£5.24m) to become the most expensive DB5 ever sold at auction.
An earlier Sotheby’s sale saw a 1965 DB5 Shooting Brake, one of 12 converted by Radford, make $1.77m (£1.45m); it was the highest-priced estate to go under the hammer.
The final Brit in Sotheby’s recordbreaking trio was a 1994 McLaren F1 road car with LM upgrades that also sold at Sotheby’s for a less-than-forecast $19.805m (£16.24m) – still the highest price ever paid at auction for any McLaren. These figures contrast with a restored 1973 MGB roadster sold by the same auction house for just $5600 (£4613).
Richard’s figures further support the notion of an otherwise calming market. $122.6m (£100.53m) less was spent this year than at the same sales in 2018, which grossed $370.9m (£304.14m) – 34 per cent more than this year. In 2018, 849 cars sold from 1378 offered – 80 more selling and 63 more offered than this year – and the overall sale rate was 62 per cent, four per cent more than in 2019.
Of course, not all of Sotheby’s highend market sales went as expected. Attempts to sell a significant historical Porsche went awry on 17 August. Bids on the 1939 Porsche Type 64 were mistakenly reported by the auctioneer, reaching as high as $70m before the error was corrected. Before the sale, it was thought that the car might fetch as much as $20 million; an angry crowd stopped the sale at $17m.
An RM Sotheby’s spokesperson said: ‘As bidding opened on the Type 64, increments were mistakenly displayed on the screen, causing unfortunate confusion in the room. We take pride in conducting our world-class auctions with integrity and take our responsibility to our clients very seriously. This was in no way intentional on behalf
of anyone at RM Sotheby’s, rather an unfortunate misunderstanding amplified by excitement in the room. The car did reach a high bid of $17m but did not meet reserve. We will continue making every effort to sell the car.’
Richard Hudson-Evans said: The alltime Porsche auction record of $14.08m, set by the Steve McQueen/Le Mans-917K in 2017 remains intact. Nobody is any the wiser as to what a Type 64 made by Ferdinand Porsche in Nazi Germany in 1939 is really worth, but one has to wonder why Porsche has not already banked it.’