Car sales fall at Monterey event

The total dollar value for the Car Week auctions was $317.6 million, down slightly from 2016.

MONTEREY, Calif. — A new record was set for a British car sale, a new record was set for a McLaren car sale, and a new auction house joined the action during the just-concluded Monterey Car Week, but the total auction sales figure was down slightly from 2016.

RM Sotheby broke existing British car records when it moved a 1956 Aston Martin DBR1 Roadster for $22.55 million, beating a record set last year when the same auction house sold a 1955 Jaguar D-Type for $21.78 million.

Bonhams, meanwhile, set a new record for a McLaren car sale, moving a 1995 McLaren F1 Coupe for $15.6 million.

Despite those high sales, the total dollar value for the week’s auctions — which were among the events leading up to the Concours d’Elegance — was $317.6 million, according to numbers gathered by the vintage insurance company Hagerty. That’s down from last year’s total of $338 million, and far below the $400 million in sales racked up during a heated 2014 car week.

“Post-block” sales, made after the auctions were closed, added an additional $10 million, most of it in the form of a 1963 Jaguar E-Type Lightweight Roadster, sold by Bonhams for $8 million.

Hagerty’s Jonathan Klinger said that he believed the market was still leveling off from a precipitous rise in prices that peaked with the high 2014 number, and that car prices seemed stable.

The average sale price this year was $438,000, compared with last year’s $466,000. The sell-through rate was about 57% for both years.

The numbers were flat in spite of the arrival of a new player on the crowded car week schedule. Worldwide Auctioneers joined RM Sotheby; Bonhams; Gooding & Co.; Mecum; and Russo and Steele, bringing a one-day sale to the busy auction calendar. The new arrival clocked $7 million in sales, Klinger said.