📍 ‘Monterey has just delivered the biggest collector-car auction week on record.’
Nearly $750 million changed hands, with extraordinary results for a Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, McLaren F1 GTR and the modern Ferrari halo cars.
But underneath the fireworks sits a more interesting message.
The market isn’t buying everything. It is buying the best.
♔ Full Story
▪️If anyone was waiting for proof that serious money has returned to collector cars, Monterey provided approximately three-quarters of a billion dollars of it.
▪️But headline totals can be wonderfully misleading.
▪️At the summit: A 1964 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe achieved $42.9m, becoming the most valuable American car sold at auction.
▪️British royalty: Nick Mason’s McLaren F1 GTR brought $34.655m — a new auction record for both McLaren and a British-built car.
▪️Modern Ferrari: An F50 reached $14.575m, an Enzo $12.1m, while another F40 climbed to $8.365m.
▪️Yet approximately 75% of cars offered actually sold. That is almost unchanged from 2025 despite the enormous increase in total value.
▪️That distinction matters.
▪️Buyers appear increasingly willing to pay exceptional money for exceptional cars: impeccable provenance, rarity, specification and cultural importance.
▪️Move one rung down, and enthusiasm becomes noticeably more disciplined.
▪️This isn’t indiscriminate exuberance.
▪️It looks more like capital becoming highly selective.
▪️For collectors, that may be healthier than another boom.
♔ Bottom line: The best cars are behaving increasingly like scarce assets.
📍 ‘The merely expensive ones still have to justify themselves.’
