Monterey Car Week auctions mix seven-figure Ferraris with overlooked race machinery

Broad Arrow

Quail Lodge – West Farm Field, Carmel, August 13-14. broadarrowauctions.com

It may be a mere five years since Broad Arrow was founded, but it soon muscled its way in to some of the key events in the classic car calendar, including the Amelia Concours in Florida, the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Italy, Belgium’s Zoute Grand Prix and, as of now, The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering in Monterey Car Week.

Taking over from Bonhams’ decades-long run as official auction partner of The Quail, Broad Arrow will field cars from across the collector spectrum at what will be the 23rd edition of the prestigious event, which is backed by Rolex and organised by leading auto enthusiast Sir Michael Kadoorie’s Peninsula Signature Events.

This year’s sale is set to comprise 175 lots, with one of the most appealing offerings coming in the form of a 1987 Porsche 928 Clubsport, above, that’s estimated at $250,000-$350,000 (£185,000-£260,000) and which is being sold without reserve. It’s a pre-production model, so ultra rare – but there’s added appeal in the fact that it originally belonged to motor racing legend Jochen Mass, who died last year at 78.

Mass owned the factory-built lightweight from new, keeping it for more than a decade and using it to clock up thousands of miles as his main form of transport to and from Group C endurance races – making the Porsche a familiar sight at circuits around Europe.

It was the first of just four lightweight Clubsport prototypes produced, with the other three going to factory drivers Bob Wollek, Derek Bell and Hans-Joachim Stuck – who, along with Mass, were given the cars as part of the deal for racing the Rothmans 962s.

RM Sotheby’s

Monterey Conference Center, Monterey, August 13-15. RMSothebys.com

This year’s auction at Monterey will be its 29th in succession – and it has plenty to live up to, not least the success of last year’s sale which grossed just short of $120m (£94m) and saw an as-new Ferrari Daytona SP3 cross the block for $26m (£19.1m). It remains the most expensive modern Ferrari ever sold and was the top lot at Car Week in 2025.

We’re unlikely to see such a record this year, but for anyone with a seven-figure sum burning a hole in their pocket, there’s plenty to spend it on – notably a 1979 Ferrari 512 BB LM, above, the seventh of 25 cars built. It could fetch up to $3.5m (£2.6m), with a similar amount expected for a very different offering: a 1931 Duesenberg Model J Tourster, one of eight by Pennsylvania coachbuilder Derham.

Gooding Christie’s

Pebble Beach Parc du Concours, Pebble Beach, August 14-15. Goodingco.com

This is the second Pebble Beach sale to be held under the Gooding Christie’s banner following the historic auction house’s acquisition of David Gooding’s eponymous business in 2024. Gooding had already been the official auctioneer of the Pebble Beach Concours for 20 years so, other than the double-barrelled name, little has changed.

One car that’s more or less guaranteed to pass the seven-figure mark is the 1931 Miller ‘Bowes Seal Fast’ Special, above, that won that year’s Indy 500 in the hands of Louis Schneider. It was sold at Pebble Beach by Mecum in 2011 for $2.1m (£1.3m).

Mecum Auctions

Del Monte Golf Course, Monterey, August 13-15. Mecum.com

In typical style, Mecum’s Car Week auction is so extensive that seeing it properly would require several days of dedication – the final catalogue will include at least 600 cars and a further 100 motorcycles, plus a few hundred lots of automobilia (or ‘road art’ as Mecum calls it). Cars will include NASCAR racers driven in period by top stars, road-going Italian exotica such as last year’s near $2m (£1.5m) Lamborghini Miura P400 S, above, and everything else from pre-war saloons to traditional and modern classics. And while Car Week auctions are traditionally perceived as being aimed mainly at the ultra-well-heeled, Mecum’s efforts are invariably peppered with surprisingly affordable offerings for the ‘normal’ enthusiast.

Bonhams Cars

Laguna Seca, August 13. cars.bonhams.com

Bonhams’ new move from being resident auctioneer at The Quail to official auctioneer of the Monterey Motorsports Reunion brings the house into the thick of Car Week’s race scene. That could mean a potential captive audience of competition car enthusiasts, and they may be spoilt for choice by this year’s Bonhams catalogue – among which will be two historically important US racers.

The first is a Can-Am Lola-Ford T70 Mk2, left and below right, which was driven in period by the legendary Dan Gurney who took the chequered flag in the car at Bridgehampton in 1966 for the All American Racers team – marking the only Ford-powered victory during the nine years of the original Can-Am championship, which ran from 1966 to 1974 (the series was revived in 1977 and ran until 1987).

Said to feature “well-preserved” historic patina, the car retains the modified bulkhead at the rear of the cockpit that enabled the 6ft 4in Gurney to settle into a comfortable driving position.

The T70 will be sold alongside the
1967 Vollstedt-Ford 67B Indycar, left, which was driven by double-Formula 1 champion Jim Clark, who competed in it at the 1967 Rex Mays 300 road race held at Riverside, California.

The car features a 500bhp, 4.2-litre, quad-cam V8 – which forced Clark to retire from the race when it failed while he was leading the field. The eventual winner? That man again – Dan Gurney.