In addition to its usual array of drop-dead gorgeous automobiles, Monterey 2013 featured breathtaking racing, record-breaking sales and the coolest gathering of lemons you’ve ever seen in one place. Check out a selection of photos from the week.
With the numbers back from Gooding’s final day on Sunday, Monterey 2013 is complete. As expected, the final totals exceeded $300 million, but not by the margin that some of us were predicting. The final unofficial total was $301.9M, up from $265M last year. The resurgence of Bonhams was undeniable, and RM walked away with the top honors (both over the block and at the podium on Sunday).
RM of course sold what they described as “the most valuable road car ever sold at auction” in the Ferrari 275 GTB/4*S N.A.R.T. Spider for $27.5M. The N.A.R.T. Spider exceeded its pre-sale estimate by a whopping $10.5M. In addition to setting a record for the widest margin by which a lot exceeded its estimate (that won’t likely be broken any time soon), the amount by which it exceeded the pre-sale estimate was greater than the sale price of the next most expensive lot, the 1957 Ferrari 250 TdF at Gooding for $9.4M.
RM’s total $125M with a sell-through rate of 87% and an average sale price of almost $1.2M handily exceeded Gooding’s $112M with an 89% sell-through rate and an average lot price of just under $1M. The difference here was obviously the $27.5M gorilla in the room. Factor that out and things would have looked a bit different, but RM got the big consignment and at the end of the day won Pebble Beach fair and square.
Bonhams’ Quail Lodge sale was one of the big stories of the week. They nearly tripled their 2012 total of $13M with a $30M-plus showing. The high sale was a 1931 Bentley 4.5-Litre Supercharged Le Mans Roadster that sold for $4,647,500.
At the accessible end of things, both Russo and Mecum — although they remain entertaining and well-run events —regressed in their totals from last year. Mecum’s total sales were about $5M off last year’s $32M. Its big car was a 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder that sold for the high side of estimates at nearly $4M. Russo also stepped back a bit from its $9.9M total from last year with just south of $7M. Russo’s high sale was a 1949 Ferrari 166 Inter Berlinetta for $1.1M. There was much speculation that this may have been the result of Barrett-Jackson holding a sale in Reno earlier this month coupled with Auctions America’s recent sale in Burbank.
