Monterey Car Week 2026: The World's Best Week for Cars | Import & Export Guide

Monterey Car Week returns to the California coast this August, and the 2026 edition is shaping up to be a stunning lineup of classics, collector cars, race cars, and rarities that simply do not gather anywhere else on the calendar. Over 1,200 cars cross the block across the five major Monterey auctions in a typical year, combined sales regularly clear $400 million, and the results that come out of Monterey set the tone for collector car values worldwide for the twelve months that follow.

Ocean and air freight booking windows for international car shipping into the event are already narrowing. More on that below.

One Week, Every Kind of Car

Where else can you walk from a 1950s Italian Grand Prix car to a Group C Le Mans prototype to a pre-war Duesenberg to a modern hypercar in the same afternoon? Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, The Quail, Werks Reunion, the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca, Concours d'Lemons — each event has its own register, and together they cover everything with wheels. That is what makes Monterey the best week for cars anywhere in the world: range.

Held annually on the Monterey Peninsula, the week provides a well needed escape from anything that doesn't have a VIN plate. Where else would you see a concours-prepared Bugatti roll onto the Pebble Beach fairway at dawn, and then a rusted-out wagon get judged on "unique use of duct tape" the next day? That is the spread. That is why collectors fly in from every continent.

The Auction Results Tell You Where Values Are Headed

The combined Monterey auction numbers are the single most closely watched data point in the collector car world. When a mid-engine Ferrari doubles its last public sale, when air-cooled 911s cool off, when a 1990s Japanese icon sets a new ceiling — that figure gets priced into every dealer's inventory, every insurance appraisal, and every bank's loan-to-value worksheet for the next year.

Total Monterey sales regularly clear $400M across RM Sotheby's, Gooding, Mecum, Bonhams, and Broad Arrow. Watch the sell-through rate as closely as the top lot. A week with 85% sold and strong mid-market bidding is a healthier market signal than a single $50M headline car.

The Winning Cars Tell You What's Coming Next

Best of Show at Pebble Beach, class wins at The Quail, podium finishes at Laguna Seca — these don't just make for a good Monday morning story. They reset the prominence ladder for what collectors hunt next. A pre-war Talbot-Lago taking Best of Show in August tends to move the market for French coachbuilt classics for the next decade. A 1960s endurance car topping the Rolex Reunion can push similar chassis from background lots to headline lots at Amelia Island, Rétromobile, and Goodwood.

Watch what wins this year. Those categories will show up under the lights at every major event that follows.

International Car Shipping for Monterey Car Week 2026

For collectors importing or exporting a car for the event, the calendar is ticking. We ship hundreds of cars into Monterey every year from Europe, the UK, Japan, the UAE, and Australia. Every one of them moves through our own US warehouses, with our own employees handling loading, receiving, and documentation.

Ocean Freight: Import of Cars from Europe, Japan, Australia

For ocean freight from Europe to California, the carrier estimates 30 to 45 days port to port, plus customs clearance. I believe booking by early June is the comfortable cutoff for anything that needs to land in time for the August events. Cars coming in from Japan or Australia should book even earlier — Pacific sailings fill fast through summer, and rolling a booking by one sailing can cost you a week.

Last-Minute Air Freight for Car Events Worldwide

Air freight is the late-booking option, but not as last-minute as most assume. Physical flight time from Frankfurt or London to LAX is about 14 hours. Documentation prep and clearance can add up to two weeks without prior submission. For Monterey, we push clients to have documentation in our hands by mid-July for any August air freight — and the same rule applies when we are moving cars out for an event worldwide, whether that is Goodwood, Rétromobile, Fuji Speedway, or a private track day in the Gulf.

Export of Cars After the Auction

Winning a car on the block is the easy part. Getting it home — titled, cleared, insured, and onto the right vessel or freighter — is where most first-time buyers stumble. We handle export of cars directly out of Monterey back to any port we service, with documentation sorted in the same warehouse the car lands in after the auction.

Plan the Shipping Before You Plan the Bid

Monterey Car Week 2026 is going to be a spectacular week of cars. The auction prints will tell you where collector values are headed, and the winners on the field will tell you which categories are climbing next. Booking your import or export logistics early is what gets you in the room with the cars that matter.

Ready to begin your Monterey Car Week import journey? Contact West Coast Shipping's international vehicle logistics specialists today for a personalized consultation and discover how simple bringing your dream car to Monterey can be.