Monterey Car Week Guide

Monterey Car Week 2026: Schedule, Auctions, and How to Get a Car Home

Ten days, roughly fifty-five events, five auction houses and about 1,000 cars crossing blocks within about fifteen miles of each other. Here is the whole thing in one place, including the ticket prices nobody else publishes and what actually happens after the hammer falls.

By Dmitriy Shibarshin, West Coast Shipping · Published August 6, 2026 · Last updated August 6, 2026

Monterey Car Week 2026 dates and what is new

Monterey Car Week 2026 takes place August 7 to 16, 2026. It is not one event and it has no single organizer. It is a loose confederation of concours, auctions, race meetings, club gatherings, street shows and private parties that have accumulated around the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance since 1950, spread across seven towns on the Monterey Peninsula.

The gravitational center is Sunday. Everything else has arranged itself in the days before it. Race cars run at Laguna Seca. Auction houses set up on golf courses. Carmel and Pacific Grove close their main streets. By Thursday the Peninsula is holding something in the order of a hundred thousand visitors on roads built for a quiet coastal town.

What changed for 2026

• The Pebble Beach Concours turns 75. The featured marque is Ferrari, with a focus on Chinetti and NART competition cars. The featured coachbuilder is Carrozzeria Alfredo Vignale. Featured classes include Early American Speedsters, Classic Streamliners, Pebble Beach Road Racing Greats from the 1950 to 1956 forest races, and Japanese Motorsports. A Lamborghini Miura 60th anniversary display is planned for the third fairway.
• Bonhams moved. After more than two decades at The Quail, the Bonhams Monterey sale is now The Laguna Seca Auction, held at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca under a multi-year agreement with the raceway.
• Broad Arrow took over The Quail. Broad Arrow is now the official auction partner of The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering, and moved its sale there from the Monterey Jet Center.
• Japanese motorsport is the Rolex Reunion featured marque, with IROC returning and a first JDM car show at the track.
• The Quail's 2026 classes include the 100th anniversary of Route 66, the Lamborghini Diablo, the Legacy of Japanese GTs and the Ferrari F40.
• Pacific Grove's Rotary Concours Auto Rally has Jaguar as its 2026 featured marque.

Monterey Car Week 2026 schedule, day by day

All times are Pacific. Where two sources disagree on an hour or a price, we have used the event's own site and flagged the rest. Events move and sell out, so confirm before you drive.

Friday, August 7 — opening night

Saturday, August 8 and Sunday, August 9 — the Pre-Reunion weekend

This is the week's best-kept value. The Pre-Reunion runs the same cars on the same circuit as the following weekend's Rolex Reunion, for a fraction of the price and with a fraction of the crowd. More than 200 historic race cars across roughly twelve groups spanning 1950 to 2011, with an open paddock you can walk.

Monday, August 10 — the quiet day

Tuesday, August 11 — Carmel opens up

Wednesday, August 12 — the auctions open, the racing starts

Thursday, August 13 — the biggest day of the week

If you only come for one day, this is the one. Thursday has more free, high-quality content than any other day of Car Week, and it is also the day the auctions get serious. It is also the worst day for traffic. Plan geographically, not by wish list.

Friday, August 14 — The Quail

Saturday, August 15 — racing, Seaside and the last hammers

Sunday, August 16 — the 75th Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance

The show field is the 18th fairway of Pebble Beach Golf Links. Dawn Patrol is the tradition worth getting up for. Gates open at 5:30 in the morning and the cars roll onto the grass out of the dark and the fog, which is a better spectacle than the finished field. Judging runs through the morning. The awards ramp fills the afternoon and Best of Show is announced at the end.

The five Monterey Car Week auctions in 2026

Five houses sell during Monterey Car Week 2026, offering roughly 1,000 vehicles between them across three days. Two of the five are in new places this year. Bonhams left The Quail after more than two decades for WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, and Broad Arrow moved into the Quail slot as the gathering's official auction partner.

Bonhams

Sale

The Laguna Seca Auction

When

Thu Aug 13, 10:00 AM

Where

WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca

Premium on cars

Not confirmed for 2026

Broad Arrow

Sale

The Quail Auction

When

Thu Aug 13, 2:00 PM
Fri Aug 14, 11:00 AM

Where

The Quail Golf Club, Carmel

Premium on cars

12% to $250k, then 10%

Mecum

Sale

Monterey

When

Thu–Sat Aug 13–15

Where

Del Monte Golf Course, Monterey

Premium on cars

Not confirmed for 2026

RM Sotheby's

Sale

The Monterey Auction

When

Thu–Sat Aug 13–15

Where

Monterey Conference Center

Premium on cars

12% to $250k, then 10%

Gooding Christie's

Sale

Pebble Beach Auctions

When

Fri Aug 14, 4:00 PM
Sat Aug 15, 11:00 AM

Where

Parc du Concours, Pebble Beach

Premium on cars

12% to $250k, then 10%

Auction schedule at a glance

Registration, payment and collection deadlines

Read those deadlines again, because they are the single thing first-time Monterey buyers underestimate. At Broad Arrow and RM Sotheby's you have roughly 24 hours to move the money. Broad Arrow's clock runs on Eastern time, which means 2:00 PM Pacific. An international wire started on Friday afternoon for a Thursday evening purchase will not land in time. Tell your bank the amount and the beneficiary before the sale, or compliance will hold it.

How to buy a car at a Monterey auction

Monterey is not a place to learn how auctions work. Roughly a thousand cars sell inside three days, the catalogues fill up to the last minute, and the terms are strict and written entirely in the house's favour. Here is the sequence, in order.

1. Read the catalogue for what it does not say

Catalogues go live four to eight weeks out and keep filling until days before the sale. The lot essay is marketing. Read it for absences. Silence on matching numbers, on the original engine, on a gap in ownership, or on when the restoration was done is meaningful.

Look for the paperwork that carries value in its own right. A Ferrari Classiche red book. A Porsche Certificate of Authenticity. A Mercedes-Benz Classic data card. A British Motor Industry Heritage Certificate. FIA HTP papers on a competition car. Then ask the specialist directly for the restoration invoice file and the prior sale history. They will tell you more than the catalogue prints.

2. Inspect the car, and understand the limits of that inspection

Preview is your only chance to touch the car. Preview is free and public at Broad Arrow and on the Bonhams Tuesday. It is $50 at Gooding and $60 at RM Sotheby's, and it is folded into gate admission at Mecum.

Independent inspectors work the Monterey preview fields specifically, and a typical single-vehicle inspection runs roughly $600 to $1,000. Expect a report with 150 or more photographs, paint-depth meter readings, driveline stampings, VIN plates and trim tags, and whatever undercarriage is reachable.

What you will not get is a mechanical assessment. The cars sit in rows on grass. There are no lifts, no road tests, and usually no starting the car without a specialist present. A Monterey inspection is documentary and cosmetic. Budget for recommissioning on the assumption that nothing has been properly sorted.

3. Understand estimate, reserve, and what "no reserve" really means

The published estimate is the house's opinion of the likely hammer range. It is not the reserve, and it excludes the buyer's premium. The reserve is a confidential minimum agreed with the seller. It sits at or below the low estimate and is never disclosed.

Two mechanics are worth knowing. First, the auctioneer may bid on the seller's behalf up to and including the reserve. Broad Arrow's conditions say so explicitly. Those opening bids are frequently not competing buyers. Second, the house may sell below reserve at its discretion. If bidding stalls the lot is passed, and a negotiation between house, seller and underbidder usually follows within the hour.

No reserve means the car sells to the highest bid, whatever that is. Those lots attract disproportionate attention and often outperform. They are also where the genuine bargains happen, when the room has drifted to another ring.

4. Register early, because the bank letter is the bottleneck

Every house wants the same three things. Government photo identification. Corporate documents if you are bidding through an entity. Proof that you can pay.

That third item is where people run out of time. Gooding requires an original bank letter of guarantee submitted no later than 24 hours before the session. RM Sotheby's accepts a bank letter of reference, a statement or proof of current balances, and places a pre-authorization hold on your card. Bank letters take days to produce. Start two weeks out.

One practical note. If you intend to bid well above the level your letter supports, tell the house in advance. Otherwise your paddle can be capped mid-sale, which is an unpleasant way to discover a limit.

5. Do the premium arithmetic before you sit down

At the 12% and 10% structure, here is what the premium actually costs.

Then add sales tax if it applies, and the combined rate in the City of Monterey and in Carmel is 9.25%, with nearby jurisdictions in the same range. A million-dollar hammer in the City of Monterey is about $1,105,000 plus roughly $102,000 in tax, so about $1.21 million before you have moved the car an inch.

Set your ceiling as an all-in number and work backwards to a hammer limit. The most common Monterey mistake is bidding to a hammer figure that was actually the whole budget.

6. Bidding

Increments are at the auctioneer's sole discretion and scale roughly with the bid. Around $2,500 steps under $100,000, $10,000 to $25,000 in the mid six figures, $50,000 to $100,000 above a million. A good auctioneer will split an increment late in a duel to keep a bidder alive.

What works. Write your ceiling down before the session. Let the reserve clear before you engage rather than bidding against the chandelier. Bid clearly and on the increment so the auctioneer works with you. And be willing to break the rhythm with a jump bid when you want to end it.

If you cannot be in the room, absentee bidding executes up to your maximum at the lowest price the competition allows, and telephone bidding puts a house representative on the line with you. Both are free at Broad Arrow. Every house also runs live online bidding on its own platform.

7. What happens the second the hammer falls

This is the legal pivot and it surprises people. Ownership and all risk of loss transfer to you at the moment the auctioneer announces the sale. Not at payment. Not at collection. At the hammer. Broad Arrow's conditions state it plainly and add that the bidder shall look solely to its own insurance.

Sales are as-is, where-is, with all faults, and with no express or implied warranty of any kind. You will be taken to the clerk's office to sign a bill of sale and confirm the invoice. Do that immediately rather than after the next lot.

8. Insurance from the hammer, not from collection

Because risk passes at the hammer, you need cover that starts there. Arrange an agreed-value binder with a collector-car insurer before the sale, with a way to bind by phone or app the moment you win. Confirm it covers the car sitting on the auction field, in transit, and in third-party storage.

Check the transporter's cargo liability limit separately. It is frequently far below Monterey values and it is not a substitute for your own policy.

9. Title and paperwork

Titles do not travel with the car. Broad Arrow flags lots as title in transit, where delivery may exceed 30 days after the auction depending on DMV processing. Thirty to ninety days is normal, and longer for cars with liens, out-of-state titles, estate ownership or foreign titles.

You will usually get a bill of sale and a gate pass immediately, which is enough to move the car, with the title following by courier. Ask the specialist before you bid. Is the title in hand. Is it a clean California title. Is there an open lien. And for a race car, is there a title at all, because competition cars frequently sell on a bill of sale only.

10. Book transport before you bid

Car Week saturates every enclosed transporter on the West Coast. Every major carrier stages trucks at the venues during sale week and the slots go to whoever booked first.

The collection deadlines are the same as the payment deadlines and they are enforced with money. Gooding requires all lots removed by 5:00 PM Pacific on Wednesday, August 19, with storage up to $50 per day after that. Broad Arrow requires removal by the payment deadline, then $50 per day. RM Sotheby's requires immediate arrangements and charges removal and storage fees.

The venues are the reason. Parc du Concours, the Quail's golf grounds and the Laguna Seca lakebed all have to be handed back to their owners within days of the sale.

Buying at Monterey from outside the United States

An international buyer faces three additional constraints, and they interact badly if you do not plan for them. The title timeline, the US export formalities, and the duty treatment at destination.

The title is the gating item

US Customs requires the original certificate of title, or a certified copy, plus two complete copies, before a used self-propelled vehicle can leave the country. If there is a lienholder or lessor you also need their separate written consent on letterhead, with the VIN.

That collides directly with title-in-transit timelines that can exceed 30 days. A car bought at Monterey generally cannot be exported the following week. Plan for it to sit in commercial storage near the port of exit while the paperwork catches up. That is normal and it is not a problem, as long as you budgeted for it.

The 72-hour rule

Under 19 CFR 192.2, for export by vessel or aircraft both the documentation and the vehicle must be presented to Customs at least 72 hours before export. For export by land the documentation goes in 72 hours ahead and the vehicle is presented at the time of exportation.

Treat 72 hours as business processing time at the port, not a countdown. Most forwarders build in a week. Miss it and the car rolls to the next sailing, which at the wrong time of year can be a fortnight.

AES filing and the ITN

Electronic Export Information has to be transmitted through the Automated Export System, which returns an Internal Transaction Number. The carrier cannot load the car without that ITN or an applicable exemption. In practice your freight forwarder files this. Give them the title copies, the auction invoice, the VIN, the value and the consignee details.

Duty at destination, and the number people get wrong

Two different age thresholds get confused constantly, and they do different jobs.

The 25-year rule governs importing into the United States, where vehicles 25 years and older are exempt from FMVSS conformity requirements. It has nothing to do with a car leaving Monterey.

The 30-year rule governs EU and UK import duty. A vehicle at least 30 years old, in its original state, and of a model no longer in production can be classified as a collectors' item under tariff heading 9705. In the UK that means 0% customs duty and a reduced 5% import VAT rather than 10% duty and 20% VAT. On a $500,000 car that is the difference between roughly 5% and roughly 32%. The words "original state" are doing real work there. An over-restored or modified car can be denied the classification, so get a binding tariff ruling in advance for anything borderline.

In the EU the same 9705 treatment applies at 0% duty for genuine collectors' vehicles 30 years and older, which in 2026 means model year 1996 and earlier. Import VAT is then charged at each member state's rate, with reduced rates for qualifying collector cars in Germany at 7% and France at 5.5%.

There is also a live 2026 change worth checking against your specific car. Under the EU and US joint statement, the EU has eliminated remaining customs duties on US industrial goods, with the Council giving final approval in June 2026. For a modern US-built car that means duty relief regardless of age. But origin means where the car was assembled, not where you bought it, so a Ferrari or a Porsche purchased in California is not US-origin. Import VAT applies at the destination rate in every case.

The order of operations that works

Monterey Car Week ticket prices and what is already sold out

Almost no guide publishes actual prices, which is strange given it is the first thing anyone wants to know. Here is what the 2026 events cost, and what has already gone.

The pattern is worth reading. Hospitality sells out, general admission does not. Five of the seven Pebble Beach tiers are gone but the $650 general admission ticket to the flagship event is still available on the eve of the week. The Quail is the exception, because it is capacity-capped and allocated rather than sold, and it goes within days of release.

The real sell-out is lodging. Peninsula rooms go before tickets do.

Getting there, traffic, and parking

Airports

On arrival days, Wednesday through Friday, add 45 to 90 minutes to any of those. The bottleneck is not the freeway. It is the last ten miles.

The traffic reality

Highway 68 between Monterey and Salinas is the chokepoint. It is the only real artery to Laguna Seca and it is two lanes for much of its length. Highway 1 through the Peninsula backs up in both directions, and getting into Carmel mid-morning can mean an hour of idling for a two-mile approach.

The worst windows are 7:00 to 10:00 in the morning, when everyone converges on Laguna Seca and Pebble Beach at once, and 3:30 to 7:00 in the evening, when events let out into the local commute. Thursday is the densest day of the week.

Two things worth setting up before you arrive. Text CARWEEK to 65513 for county public safety and closure alerts. And Monterey County runs a live traffic and closure map at mccarweek.com. Also assume enforcement. CHP and Monterey PD run heavy patrols on speed, exhaust noise and reckless driving all week, and there is no discretion budget left by Thursday.

Parking by venue

• WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. General parking is included with admission. Preferred parking costs extra. Gates typically open at 7:00 AM.
• Pebble Beach on Concours Sunday. General admission ticket holders are directed to assigned lots with shuttle service to the show field. VIP packages include a parking pass. ADA parking is at Bird Rock on 17-Mile Drive with a complimentary shuttle for state-issued placard holders.
• Carmel-by-the-Sea. Free lots at Vista Lobos, 3rd and Torres, and at Sunset Center, 8th between Mission and San Carlos. Carmel Plaza is paid. All of them fill by mid-morning.
• Downtown Monterey. East and West Parking Garages at Washington and Tyler.
• Werks Reunion, Friday. $40, cash only, and there are no ATMs on site.
• Legends of the Autobahn, Thursday. $30 prepaid or $40 on site at Pacific Grove Golf Links.

Shuttles and rideshare

• The Monterey Trolley is free, running downtown to Fisherman's Wharf to Cannery Row to the Aquarium, roughly 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM daily through Car Week.
• Carmel runs a free park and ride from Larsen Field on Rio Road to Carmel Plaza, Tuesday to Thursday, August 11 to 13, 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM, every 10 to 15 minutes. City Hall is 831-620-2000.
• Seaside runs free parking and a shuttle on Saturday from General Jim Moore Blvd at Eucalyptus Rd, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, serving Concours d'Lemons and Exotics on Broadway.
• Concours Sunday paid shuttle from Carmel Plaza, $40 per person for unlimited rides, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, every 20 to 30 minutes. Sold in advance online or at the Carmel Visitor Center.
• Rideshare is allowed and encouraged on Concours Sunday, with a drop-off at Concours Village. The rest of the week, expect long waits and heavy surge. Monterey has a thin local driver pool year-round and Car Week does not fix that.

Do you need a rental car? For most itineraries, yes. Events are spread across seven towns with no transit spine connecting them. The exception is if you base yourself in downtown Monterey or Cannery Row and stay inside the free trolley corridor. The best hybrid is to rent a car but choose a base you can walk from in the evenings, and use the shuttles for Carmel and for Concours Sunday. Parking, not driving, is the failure point.

Where to stay for Monterey Car Week

Peninsula hotels double and triple their normal rates for Car Week, enforce multi-night minimums over the Thursday to Sunday core, and take non-refundable deposits. The practical booking deadline for anything centrally located in 2026 was June. By the first week of August the Peninsula is effectively full.

Pick your base by which events you are anchoring on, not by proximity to Carmel. Staying in Salinas and driving to Laguna Seca every morning beats staying in Carmel and sitting on Highway 68 with everybody else.

Weather and what to pack

August on the Monterey Peninsula averages a high of 70°F and a low of 53°F, with essentially no rain. That sounds simple and it is not, because of two things.

The first is the marine layer. Fog is normal in the morning and usually burns off by early afternoon. Some days it never does, particularly in Pacific Grove and along 17-Mile Drive. The second is the microclimate spread. Carmel Valley, where The Quail is, and the Salinas Highway corridor around Laguna Seca routinely run 10 to 20 degrees warmer than the coast on the same day, and are in full sun when the coast is grey. You can be genuinely cold at Asilomar at nine in the morning and sunburned at The Quail at one in the afternoon.

So layers, and a wind-resistant shell. Sunscreen even in fog, because UV comes through the marine layer. A warm layer for any evening event, especially Motorlux, which is on an open tarmac. Comfortable shoes that work on grass, because the Pebble Beach show field is a fairway and heels sink into it. And the Concours' own advice is worth repeating: a hat, and a blanket if you plan to picnic.

Dress code by event

• Pebble Beach Concours. Resort casual with a polished edge, and a hat. A blazer and slacks, or elevated separates. Layers are not optional.
• Motorlux. The only event with a published code. Cocktail attire recommended, no jeans and no flip flops. 21 and over.
• The Quail. Garden party formality by convention. Linen, panama hats, loafers.
• Rolex Reunion and Laguna Seca. Fully casual. Closed-toe shoes, a hat, and something warm. The track sits in a wind-exposed bowl.
• Concours d'Lemons. The joke is the dress code.

The best free events at Monterey Car Week

Roughly a third of the Car Week calendar is free. Most guides name two or three of them. Here is the full roster, and it is enough to fill a very good week without buying a single ticket.

One day, two days, or the full week

If you only have one day, take Thursday

Not Sunday. Thursday, August 13 has the highest density of free, high-quality content of any day of the week, and it is the day the cars are moving rather than parked.

• 8:30 to 10:30 AM. The Tour d'Elegance. It departs Pebble Beach at 9:30 and runs 17-Mile Drive and Highway 1 south. Pick a public vantage point on the route rather than the Portola Road staging area, which sits inside the 17-Mile Drive closure. More than 150 Concours entrants, moving, free.
• 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Legends of the Autobahn at Pacific Grove Golf Links. Free, $30 parking.
• 1:30 to 3:30 PM. Concours Carmel on Dolores Street. Free. Use the Larsen Field shuttle rather than hunting for parking.
• 4:00 to 5:00 PM. Woodies in the Woods at Asilomar, free with a beer garden, or reposition to Concours Village at Pebble Beach.

Total ticket spend, about $30 in parking. Note that every gap above is deliberate. Thursday is the worst traffic day of the week and three of those four moves cross the Peninsula.

The alternative one-day plan, if you want the postcard rather than the value, is Sunday. $650, gates at 5:30 in the morning for Dawn Patrol, awards through the afternoon. Bring a blanket.

If you have two days, take Thursday and Saturday

Thursday as above. Then Saturday, either the Rolex Reunion race day at Laguna Seca, which has the best cost per hour of any ticketed event and includes paddock access, or the free Seaside double-header of Concours d'Lemons in the morning and Exotics on Broadway in the afternoon, with Concorso Italiano as the paid upgrade in between.

The prestige pair is Friday at The Quail and Sunday at Pebble Beach. It is also the two hardest days for tickets and traffic, and by August the Quail ticket does not exist at face value.

If you have the full week

• Fri Aug 7. Kickoff on Alvarado Street. Arrive, settle, do not drive far.
• Sat–Sun Aug 8–9. Pre-Reunion and the Corkscrew Hillclimb. Same cars and same circuit as next weekend, a fraction of the price and the crowd. The locals' pick.
• Mon Aug 10. A light day. Monterey British, Electric Coast, Porsche Monterey Classic, all free. Good day to drive 17-Mile Drive and Big Sur while the gate is still open to you.
• Tue Aug 11. Concours for a Cause in Carmel and the free Bonhams preview at Laguna Seca. Night Rider at Asilomar in the evening.
• Wed Aug 12. The Little Car Show and Astons on the Avenue, both free, plus Reunion qualifying. Motorlux at night if you are going big.
• Thu Aug 13. The free supermarathon above. Auctions open in earnest.
• Fri Aug 14. The Quail, Werks Reunion, Reunion racing. The hardest logistics day of the week. Pick one, maybe two.
• Sat Aug 15. Reunion race day, or the Seaside free shows plus Concorso Italiano.
• Sun Aug 16. Pebble Beach. Up at 4:30, gates at 5:30.
• Depart Monday, not Sunday night. The post-Concours exodus through a small airport is a bad evening.

Ten mistakes first-timers make

1. Assuming you can drive 17-Mile Drive to see cars. It is closed to non-Concours traffic August 13 to 16.
2. Over-scheduling. The Peninsula looks tiny on a map. Cluster geographically and build real buffers.
3. Trusting the GPS estimate, especially on Highway 68. Leave 45 to 90 minutes earlier from Wednesday on.
4. Not bringing cash. Werks Reunion parking is $40 cash with no ATM.
5. Dressing for California in August. You will be cold at 7 AM and at 6 PM.
6. Buying only the expensive ticket and skipping the free calendar, which is where most of the week actually is.
7. Paying Peninsula rates rather than basing in Salinas, Seaside or Marina.
8. Arriving Saturday. You have missed Thursday, which is the best day.
9. Booking a Sunday evening flight home.
10. Expecting to buy Quail or hospitality tickets on arrival. They are gone.

Accessibility, food and signal

Accessibility. Pebble Beach has ADA parking at Bird Rock on 17-Mile Drive with a complimentary shuttle for state-issued placard holders. The show field is a golf course, so firm grass, gentle slopes and long distances. Laguna Seca is a steep hillside and the Corkscrew viewing areas are not reachable without a real climb, so stay around the paddock and pit straight for level ground. The street shows in Carmel, Pacific Grove and Seaside are the easiest of the lot, though Carmel's sidewalks are uneven and the town has no street addresses.

Food. Laguna Seca permits small ice chests but no glass, and bringing your own food and water is the value move. Pebble Beach has food on the show field plus a bookable gourmet picnic, and picnicking on the fairway with a blanket is officially encouraged. Peninsula restaurants need reservations weeks out during Car Week. If you have not booked, plan on event food and food trucks, or eat in Salinas or Marina.

Signal. Expect cell service to degrade badly at Laguna Seca, which is a bowl holding tens of thousands of people on one sector, and to be patchy along the Big Sur segment of the Tour route and parts of 17-Mile Drive. Download your tickets, maps and parking passes before you leave the hotel, and agree a physical meeting point with your group instead of relying on texting.

Shipping a car home from Monterey

West Coast Shipping has been moving collector cars out of Monterey Car Week for close to two decades, and our California warehouse in Richmond is about two hours north of the Peninsula. What follows is how the logistics actually work in the week after the hammer, and what it costs.

When your car can actually leave

Two different rules apply, and mixing them up is what causes the panicked Friday phone calls.

• An auction car is released to us the first business day after you have paid the auction house. Not the night of the sale. That is the houses' process, not ours, and every carrier at Monterey works to it.
• Which is why you pay early rather than at the deadline. Broad Arrow and Gooding both set the removal deadline at the same moment as the payment deadline, so if you wire on the last afternoon you have created a gap you will be charged for at $50 a day. Wire the morning after the hammer and the release lines up cleanly.
• Show and event cars can be collected right away. Quail displays, dealer stands, concours entries and anything not sold through an auction can move as soon as the event releases the field.

We collect with enclosed transport and move the car to our Richmond, California warehouse, where it can sit while the title catches up. That storage window is the part people underestimate. If a lot is flagged title in transit, you may be waiting 30 days or more, and the auction venue will have been handed back to its owner long before then.

Monterey rates, August 2026

Container rates include enclosed transport from Monterey, the container, and storage until the title arrives. Air rates include enclosed transport, car preparation and storage until title. Both exclude cargo damage protection, customs fees, destination charges, duties and taxes, because those are set at the other end and vary by country.

Two things we are not, so you know where the edges are. We are not a customs broker, so we do not file or track import entries at destination, though we will tell you when the car moves and hand your broker everything they need. And we do not handle Canada or Mexico land-border imports into the United States.

Monterey and auction terms, defined

Auction language is deliberately precise and it costs money to misread. These are the terms that come up at Monterey.

Hammer price

The winning bid announced from the podium. It is not what you pay. The buyer's premium, and usually sales tax, sit on top of it.

Buyer's premium

A percentage the auction house adds to the hammer price. At Monterey in 2026 the standard on cars is 12% on the first $250,000 and 10% above that.

Reserve

The confidential minimum price agreed between the auction house and the seller. It sits at or below the low estimate and is never disclosed to bidders.

No reserve

A lot that will sell to the highest bid, whatever that is. These draw disproportionate attention and are also where genuine bargains happen.

Passed lot

A car that did not reach its reserve and so did not sell. A negotiation between house, seller and underbidder usually follows within the hour.

Chandelier bid

A bid taken by the auctioneer on the seller's behalf, up to and including the reserve. It is not a competing buyer.

Title in transit

An auction lot whose certificate of title has not yet arrived from the DMV. Delivery may exceed 30 days, which delays any export.

Risk of loss

The point at which damage to the car becomes the buyer's problem. At auction that is the fall of the hammer, not payment or collection.

Absentee bid

A maximum left with the auction house, executed on your behalf at the lowest price the competition allows. Free at several Monterey houses.

ITN

The Internal Transaction Number returned by the Automated Export System after an export filing. A carrier cannot load a vehicle without it.

Heading 9705

The customs tariff classification for collectors' items. A car 30 years or older, in original state and out of production can qualify for 0% duty in the EU and UK.

ATA Carnet

A temporary export document that lets a vehicle enter a country for an event or restoration without paying duty or import VAT, provided it leaves again.

Dawn Patrol

The tradition of arriving at Pebble Beach before sunrise to watch the Concours cars roll onto the 18th fairway out of the dark. Gates open at 5:30 AM.

Concours d'Elegance

A judged competition of collector cars on presentation, originality and history rather than speed. Pebble Beach is the most prestigious in the world.

Monterey Car Week frequently asked questions

Last updated August 6, 2026. Prices, times and venues change. Confirm with each event before you travel. Rate card valid for August 2026 collections from Monterey.