Classic car sales are winding down in Monterey as the new generation takes over

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Auction sales during Monterey Car Week were down 3 percent from last year as a shift from older to newer cars left a backlog of unsold classics from the 1950s and 1960s.

Total sales at this year’s five Monterey auto auctions – RM Sotheby’s, Broad Arrow, Gooding & Company, Mecum and Bonhams – fell to $391.6 million this year from $403 million in 2023, according to classic car insurer Hagerty . This followed a 14% drop last year compared to the 2022 peak.

Of the 1,143 cars up for sale, only 821 were sold — a 72 percent sell-through rate, according to Hagerty. The average sale price was $476,965, down slightly from last year’s average of $477,866.

Experts say wealthy collectors still have plenty of money to spend and are feeling confident given the recent rally in the stock market, but the types of cars they want are changing. There were simply too many similar cars at too many auctions to generate high prices and sales.

“It’s saturation,” said Simon Kidston, founder of Kidston and a leading adviser to wealthy car collectors. “When I walked through the auctions and saw so many similar ‘products’, I asked myself if any of them had considered what they or their competitors had already consigned and if the cars were vying for the same buyers. Add to that the fact that many entries have already been in dealer windows for months or years, which always feels like sloppy seconds.”

At the same time, a new generation of collectors driving the market – mainly Gen Xers and millennials – prefer cars from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Classic cars from the 1950s and 1960s fueled the market for decades and are popular to the baby boomers they are pouring into the market and finding no buyers.

The Monterey sales rate (or the percentage of cars actually sold on the auction block) was an anemic 52 percent for pre-1981 cars priced at $1 million or more, according to Hagerty. The sales figure for cars under 4 years old was a much stronger 73% — proving that young collectors are now in the driver’s seat.

Hagerty’s Sports Car Index for sports cars from the 1980s to 2000s is up more than 60% since 2019, while the Blue Chip Index for Corvettes, Ferraris, Jaguars and other classics of the decade 1950 and 1960 has decreased by 3%.

Admittedly, a small number of rare, true masterpieces will still command high prices. The top car of the week was a 1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider that sold at RM Sotheby’s for $17 million and second was a 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Lungo Spider which is one of five in existence.

However, the broader changing of the guard in classic cars, especially as many older collectors begin to sell off or reduce their collections, is likely to weigh on prices for older cars for years.

“From an auction perspective, the market continues to take a breather while we transition from what was hot, think Enzo-era Ferraris, the so-called full classics as well as the sports cars of the 50s and 60s, to rising segment of modern supercars,” said McKeel Hagerty, CEO of Hagerty. “The divergence between older and newer cars has accelerated.”

Some say high interest rates are also putting pressure on the classic car market. At the lower end of the market, many buyers used financing to buy cars and build their collections. At a high level, rising prices have increased the opportunity cost of buying a classic car.

“People think, ‘Instead of this million-dollar car, I could be making 5% maybe 10%’ if you have a great manager,” Kidston said. “That, more than anything else, makes people think twice. A collector car is part investment. There is no other reason for the rise in value of collector cars over the past 40 years than from an investment angle.”