I worked Monterey week 2025 the way I have worked it since 2017 — which is to say, three auctions and the Concours, four hotels in five nights, an embarrassing per-diem on coffee, and a notebook that fills up faster than I think it will. The week's headlines have already been written elsewhere; this piece is for the lots that, in retrospect, are going to matter for the next twelve months of market context, even if they did not make the New York Times.

Here are the five that I went home with.

1. The 1971 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Spider Conversion that sold at RM

Hammer price: $1.265 million all-in. Pre-sale estimate: $1.5 to $2.0 million. This is the headline I want to talk about because the result was meaningfully under the low estimate and the chatter on the floor afterward was uneven.

The lot was a documented period conversion — done in 1972 by a Daytona owner who took it to a Modena shop, not a factory build. The factory built only 122 Daytona Spiders. Period conversions are roughly a hundred more cars on top of that, depending on how generously you define "period." The market has historically treated period conversions as worth roughly 50 to 60 percent of a factory Spider — which, at recent factory-Spider comps of $3.2 to $3.8 million, would put a clean period conversion at $1.7 to $2.3 million. This lot sold below that range.

I think what is happening is a market separation between the factory-built Spiders and the conversions. The factory Spiders have been pulling steadily up. The conversions have softened slightly. This $1.265 million sale, I think, is the new comp for high-quality period conversions, and the gap to the factory Spiders is widening. Buyers of conversions in 2018 to 2020 paid factory-adjacent money. Those owners are going to have to recalibrate.

2. The 1995 McLaren F1 — no sale at $19.5M

The F1 was offered with a high estimate of $24 million and a low estimate of $19 million. Bidding stalled at $19.5 million. The reserve was confidential but reported to be $22 million. The car was a documented LM-spec service car — a road car that had received the LM brake upgrade, suspension changes, and other late-period upgrades but was not a built LM. Roughly 8,000 km. Single ownership since 2006.

Two things matter here. First, the F1 market — which had been on what felt like an inexorable upward trajectory through 2022 to 2024 — is showing the first signs of price discovery slowing. Three F1 sales in the past 18 months have been at or below the prior comp. This is the second public no-sale in that window. Second, the "LM spec" cars are getting parsed harder than they used to be. A genuine LM is a $36M-plus car. An LM-spec service car is, apparently, not.

I think the F1 market correction — and I am calling it that, conservatively — will pull through the entire 1990s mid-engine supercar category over the next eighteen months. The Carrera GT, the Enzo, the F50. None of these cars will lose money. They are not going to keep appreciating at the rate they were.

3. The 1989 Porsche 962C Group C car that sold at Bonhams

Hammer: $4.4 million. Pre-sale: $3.0 to $4.0 million. A documented Le Mans entry with significant period race history, two-time finisher at La Sarthe, and a documented restoration completed in 2022.

This is the result I went into the week predicting most aggressively. The 962/956 platform has been the systematically underpriced Group C car for years. Buyers wanted Group C drama in their collection but kept buying Sauber-Mercedes and Toyota Group Cs at premiums to Porsche cars with better race records. That gap has been closing for two seasons. This sale closed most of it. Expect the 956 cars — which historically traded at roughly 60 percent of a 962 — to see a follow-on correction within the year.

4. The 2017 Pagani Huayra BC that sold at Gooding for $4.85M

This one is harder to position because the modern hypercar market is not behaving the way I would have predicted in 2023. The Huayra BC was offered with a high estimate of $5.5M. It sold at $4.85M including premium. The car was a one-owner US example with under 2,000 km and the Pacchetto Tempesta aero package.

What I am watching here is the gap between the BC and the original Huayra coupe, which has been trading in the $2.2M to $2.6M range. Historically the BC commanded a 2.5x premium. This sale puts the premium at roughly 2x. I think the modern hypercar market is going through a similar parsing exercise to the F1 market: the truly limited cars are holding, and the "limited within the limited" sub-variants are getting compressed. The implication for the Huayra Tricolore (3 built), the Codalunga (5 built), and the Imola (5 built) is that I expect those cars to sustain their premiums. The BC (20 built including roadsters) is in a category that's getting reassessed.

5. The 1965 Shelby GT350 Competition (SCCA car) that sold at Mecum Hot August

This wasn't technically Monterey week — Mecum's Hot August Nights overlaps with the Monterey calendar but happens in Reno — but I went up Saturday and want to flag the result because it was the most unexpected of the week.

Hammer: $2.85M. Pre-sale: $1.6 to $1.9M. A documented SCCA-spec competition GT350 (one of approximately 36 built), 1965 production, single-period-owner-then-collection-stewardship history, never restored, never re-shelled, never repainted. Roughly the most documentary-clean example I have ever seen on a stage.

The previous public comp for an R-spec GT350 was about $1.8 million in 2024. This sale is a 60 percent jump in eighteen months. The story I think is going on: pristine documentation and unrestored condition are commanding premium multiples for the cars where survivorship of original condition is genuinely rare. We are at the point where the few remaining unrestored examples of significant 1960s American competition cars are leaving the active market. The next clean Shelby GT350R that surfaces will, I think, be a $3M+ car based on this comp.

The week's pattern

The throughline across all five of these lots is the market parsing finer and finer distinctions. The factory Daytona Spider versus the period conversion. The genuine LM versus the LM-spec service car. The 962 with Le Mans entries versus the 962 with Daytona entries. The Huayra BC versus the Tricolore. The unrestored R-spec GT350 versus the restored ones.

The implication for anyone shopping in these segments is that the "adjacent" cars — the ones that are nearly the most desirable example but not quite — are getting compressed. The genuinely best cars are getting more expensive. The middle is increasingly an unhappy place to be holding inventory.

I am writing this from my hotel in San Francisco the Monday after the week closed. I have notes on probably another fifteen lots that did not surprise me. Those I will save for the longer piece I write every September. The five above are the ones I think will matter most for the next year of comps. I'd love to be wrong on the F1 reading. I'm watching.