Bonhams, Westin Kierland, Scottsdale January 23, 2026
In a three-auction week at Scottsdale this year Bonhams presented its usual one-day sale at the Westin Kierland. It offered a wide variety of cars with many choices for collectors. Importantly, however, it featured one lot, an essentially brand new 2024 Bugatti Chiron Super Sport showing in the catalog photography a total of 2,740 miles […]
Bonhams, Quail Lodge, Monterey, August 15, 2025
2025 has been a full year for Bonhams. With a full calendar of auctions across multiple specialist areas in the background Bonhams private equity fund owner Epiris, which had acquired the auction house in 2018, was facing the expiration of its desired ownership window, a timeline typical of private equity firms. After adding a number […]
RM Sotheby’s, Hershey, October 8-9, 2025
As nice as Newport, RI was last weekend for Bonhams auction at Audrain car week, there has always been something special about Hershey. And it didn’t rain, and my car didn’t crap out like it did on the way to Mecum’s Harrisburg sale last summer. Part of it is the Hershey atmosphere, the swap meet, […]
Bonhams, Audrain Museum, Newport, RI, October 3 2025
Fall in New England, indeed in the Northeast, is the best time. Colors are bright. The air is crisp and clear. The sun shines with an intensity, a felicity, unknown the rest of the year. Winter looms, but there are days before it arrives. Everything is lustrous with possibilities, even though we know that the […]
Worldwide Auctioneers, Enthusiast Auction, Auburn, April 25-26, 2025
Worldwide’s Enthusiast Auction (aka “Auburn Spring”) presented an unusual and highly varied consignment largely derived from major collections including the Zimmerman Automobile Driving Museum, the Great Outdoors Collection and, most notably, the Passport Collection. 168 of the 249 lots offered, 67.5%, were No Reserve. Of the 81 lots with reserves, 58 found new owners on […]
RM Sotheby’s “The Junkyard”: The Rudi Klein Collection, Los Angeles, October 26-28, 2024
There are places we know, or hear mentioned, but rarely if ever see. Places like Caruso’s on Long Island, the legendary A.K. Miller in Vermont, even Austie Clark’s museum (as much storage yard as museum.) Every once in a while, usually part of an end-of-life event, they surface and are dispersed in a flash of […]
RM Sotheby’s, Hershey, October 9-10, 2024
RM’s post-sale press release quoted RM’s President Gord Duff, “It’s always an experience coming back to Hershey. There’s something about the atmosphere—whether it’s the history, the people, the swap meet, or the cars—that makes it feel like a homecoming.” And that is exactly how it feels. It’s early Fall, a delightful season in Pennsylvania (when […]
Bonhams, Audrain Motor Week, Newport, RI, October 4, 2024
This was Bonhams fourth year at the Audrain Motor Week. The sale total was barely over half of what they had realized here in prior years. There were only 37 lots crossing the block (figuratively speaking as the cars were on static display in the Tennis Hall of Fame indoor court). Fortunately 24 of the […]
Mecum Auctions, Monterey, August 15-17, 2024
Mecum Auctions has firmly cemented its presence among the Monterey Week auction titans. It’s a different auction from RM and Gooding although with some notable exceptions Mecum has left Bonhams well-established Quail Lodge sale in its dust, particularly in 2024. Mecum Monterey has expanded its docket into seven figures with 24 lots bid into the […]
Bonhams Quail, August 16, 2024
Some history: In 2018 Bonhams, then led by Robert Brooks who had combined Brooks Auctioneers with Bonhams in 1999, was acquired by Epiris, a British private equity firm. Barely three years later, in August 2021, Robert Brooks died after “a long illness” suggesting the sale was an expedient resolution of an uncertain future. Originally motor […]