Auction action gets rolling in Monterey
Sales totals at this week’s Monterey classic car week auctions should fall a little below last year’s $396 million, says one of the industry’s keenest eyes.
Classic car insurer and valuer McKeel Hagerty, CEO of Hagerty Insurance Agency, believes totals might decline by 7% and land around $370 million.
Hagerty was watching the start of the annual Pebble Beach Tour D’Elegance — a stately, slow-speed parade of the classic, vintage and antique cars that on Sunday will vie for top prizes at the Concours D’Elegance.
Hagerty, whose company insures many of those classic vehicles, said the drop might occur in part because there are fewer cars going under the gavel this year, and fewer are expected to fetch more than $1 million — 123 this year, versus 129 last.
The lower numbers won’t necessarily make for lower profits, though.
“The auction houses are smart,” he said. “They stack their auctions with the cars that are right for this crowd — which is a sports-car crowd.”
That means fewer American muscle cars and antique cars, but more European sports cars. Porsches especially, Hagerty said, are expected to hit high numbers.
This year could also see record numbers for what Hagerty calls “very modern supercars,” such as late model Ferraris and McLarens.
Hagerty's best guess for top car at this year’s car auctions? The 1956 Jaguar D-type that likely will become the highest-priced English car ever sold at auction. The car could bring $20 million to $25 million.
So could a 1939 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B. Being sold by RM Sotheby’s from the Sam and Emily Mann collection, this sleek prewar convertible could best the Jaguar and be the most expensive car that trades hands.
Also worth watching is another RM Sotheby’s car, race car driver and designer Carroll Shelby’s personal CSX 2000.
Because of those cars and its deep bench of other exotics and classics, RM Sotheby’s should be the top autoauction house this year, Hagerty said.
Gooding could also do very big numbers, if it makes a few key sales. So could Mecum, which Hagerty said is increasingly landing important, high-priced cars.
The risk is greater, Hagerty said, for companies whose bottom line rests on multiple sales of massively expensive cars.
“You miss a couple of big ones, and it hurts,” he said.
The first night of automobile auctions, on Thursday, ended with more of a whimper than a bang, with only two companies dropping the gavel and no surprising sales figures.
The combined total for the two houses, Mecum and Russo and Steele, was $4.7 million.
That’s far below the $72 million sold through Thursday night in 2015, but that total included the extraordinary RM Sotheby’s Pinnacle collection sale.