Monterey 2007

Monterey 2007 is over, and quite a week it was, too.
The basic information is in the table that follows, which doesn't present too well on the Blogger page but is readable.
The auctions ended on an upbeat note with both RM and Gooding & Company turning in better results than last year. Gooding's foray into Saturday evening proved to be particularly successful, even running against the best offerings of RM and Russo and Steele downtown. RM had a total of eight cars sell for a million dollars or more (with commission); Gooding had twenty-one, amounting to nearly two-thirds of the auction's total sale dollars. RM copped the top sale of the weekend at $4,950,000 for the lightweight, fourth at Le Mans, Ferrari 250GT California Spyder.
The message of the auctions seemed to be that despite unease in the financial markets, woozy housing prices and tottering mortgage financings the guys with serious money still have plenty of it and are willing to spend generously for the very best, fastest, no-bad-stories, beautiful, rare automobiles. The Ferrari California Spyder market has taken off like a rocket with two of them selling in Monterey at over $4 million each, up from mid-$2 million values just weeks ago.
The values of middle-market and below cars, however, are showing the effect of overall economic conditions and were noticeably softer in Monterey. The sales of Christie's and Bonhams were positively influenced by large consignments of No Reserve cars which helped the sell through rates of those sales, but the prices were nothing to write home about, generally being in the wholesale range.
Christie's of course made the early headlines with the $2.1 million hammer ($2,310,000 with Christie's new flat 10% commission) sale of Steve McQueen's Ferrari Lusso. Bonhams tried to follow that with the ex-Sydney Allard Le Mans Allard but it stalled at $675,000 and didn't sell. [Yet. I know the high bidder and he's not going to give up on that car.]
RM's sale of David Uihlein's American oval track cars was particularly important, although they didn't bring as much money as their history and quality might have supported. Over at Gooding's the Richard Solove Rolls-Royce Silver Ghosts and Greg Garrison Ferraris headlined the sale and brought highly impressive money.
Meanwhile, out on the lawn at Pebble Beach Harry Yeaggy's ex-Ab Jenkins Duesenberg J "The Mormon Meteor" took best of show after changing hands here at Gooding's auction two years before for $4,050,000 plus commission. Dennis Nicotra's Bugatti Type 57 supercharged Atalante, bought at Christie's Greenwich auction in early June for $852,500 highlighted Pebble Beach's Preservation Class. A number of other auction cars were in evidence on Pebble Beach's 18th Fairway.

Auction	Location	Cars Offered	Cars Sold	Sale %	% <>	% > High Est	Average Sale	Median Sale	Total $
Christie’s	Jet Center, August 16, 2007	59	41	69.5%	26.8%	17.1%	$177,985	$74,800 [42.0%]	$7,297,400 [-24.3%]
Christie’s	Jet Center, August 17, 2006	50	36	72%	47.2%	11.1%	$267,859	$99,875 [37.3%]	$9,642,913
Bonhams	Quail Lodge, August 17, 2007	95	68	71.6%	61.2%	7.5%	$121,382	$101,790 [83.9%]	$8,253,945 [-35.9%]
Bonhams	Quail Lodge, August 18, 2006	69	60	87%	56.7%	16.7%	$214,502	$102,960 [48.0%]	$12,870,149
RM Auctions	Portola Plaza, August 17-18, 2007	192	178	92.7%	67.4%	11.8%	$262,665	$82,500 [31.4%]	$46,754,350 [+6.7%]
RM Auctions	Portola Plaza, August 18-19, 2006	208	190	91.4%	62.6%	8.4%	$230,557	$81,675 [35.4%]	$43,805,740
Russo and Steele	Marriott, August 17-18, 2007	153	96	62.8%	--	--	$103,575	$70,400 [68.0%]	$9,943,230 [N/A]
Russo and Steele	Marriott, August 18-19, 2006	155	155*	100%*	--	--	$84,863*	$55,440* [65.3%]	$13,153,690*
Gooding & Company	Pebble Beach, August 18-19, 2007	133	122	91.7%	38.3%	25.2%	$502,871	$176,000 [35.0%]	$61,350,250 [+189.8%]
Gooding & Company	Pebble Beach, August 20, 2006	79	62	78.5%	51.9%	26.9%	$341,426	$123,200 [36.1%]	$21,168,400
Monterey Total 2007		632 [+12.7%]	505	79.9%	--	--	$264,553 [+32.2%*]	$93,500 [35.3%]	$133,599,175 [+32.7%*]
Monterey Total 2006		561	503*	89.7*%	--	--	$200,081*	$71,500 [35.7%]	$100,640,892*
* In 2006 Russo and Steele was a “No Reserve” sale with all cars reported sold. 2007 includes one more sale session, Gooding’s Saturday, which is equivalent to 1/7 (14.3%) more block sessions in 2007 than in 2006.