The Car Gods were truly smiling on us this year. We managed to get on the road and out of town almost a full day earlier than we ever have before. We had a little more on our Car Week plates than in years past, we were ready for anything, up to some new tricks, but there was one thing that didn’t change, and that’s our Car Week coffee habit. Since 2016 (minus one year for the #rona) we’ve begun our Car Week activities at the Gooding & Company Pebble Beach Auction, just above the links and Clubhouse of the famed Pebble Beach Golf Course and Lodge. What we hadn’t fully considered was that as we were in transit and then trying to find parking, the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance was headed our way. That’s all fine and good, but we’d gotten used to hitting Gooding on Friday morning with a mostly empty parking lot and not a whole lot going on. The bad news was difficulty parking and a hike through the Del Monte Forest…the good news is that a bad start to a day at Pebble Beach is better than a great day, most other places.

Every Car Week adventure requires an elevated level of caffeination, and thanks to the fine and generous folks at Putnam Leasing and Arrvo Coffee we enjoyed a delicious “Mocha Benz” and a “California 250 Cappuccino” after our first pass through the auction, to energize ourselves for a second pass. As usual, Gooding delivered the goods. This was their 20th year as the official auction house of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and one of the crown jewels of Car Week and always in the top 2 or 3 auctions on the peninsula.

And speaking of crown jewels, Gooding always greets preview attendees with the goods. This year it was a 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Lungo (“long”) Spider. This long, dark and understated pre-war gem achieved a staggering $14,030,000 when the gavel fell. This one of five, twin-supercharged drop top was the second most expensive car sold over the weekend at any auction.

Despite the large number achieved for this particular Alfa, the winning bid came in below the pre-auction estimate of $16 to $20 million. On that note, the overall news from the weekend auction scene wasn’t a high water mark. According to Hagerty, fewer lots were offered this year, and total sales were down around 3%. Despite the slight dip, Gooding & Company doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of. Over two evenings, along with selling the second most expensive car, they sold 151 lots, with 25 of them achieving at least a million dollars. The average price per lot was a market leading $721,783.

But enough with the numbers…time for the cars….

If you want to take a look at all of the cars in this year’s catalog, you can look here. As per our standard operating procedure, each of us will highlight a couple of our favorite cars and then present one as our overall consensus pick for Best of Auction.

Andrew’s Picks….

I make no apologies for being a Porschephile, and frankly, Gooding always makes it really easy to be a Porschephile. My first choice is this well used and raced 1966 Porsche 906. According to Gooding, this car was successfully campaigned in West Coast events (SCCA, CASC, USRRC, Can-Am and others) from 1966 to 1973. Porsche only made approximately 65 examples of the 906 between 1966 and 1977.

Unfortunately for the seller, this particular 906 did not did not find a buyer before it rolled off of the block. Fortunately for you though, it’s still for sale through Gooding. The asking price is $1,800,000, and we wish all prospective buyers the best of luck! We’d be ecstatic to see a new owner take it on track outings so we can all appreciate it in its natural environment…the track (preferably a Northern California track)!

And….

“Aston Martin” and “shooting brake” aren’t terms you hear together very often…or ever.? So Imagine my surprise when I turned a corner and saw an unmistakably Zagato/Aston rear end that had a lot more going on than a “standard” Aston posterior. This spectacular 2019 Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake is everything we need in this wagon averse country. The proportions were perfect, not too big or small. It also didn’t fall into the trap of looking too much like a midsize crossover. It was a perfect combination of business in front and party out back, with neither concept overshadowing the other. And speaking of the business end, this one of 99 built utility vehicle will get you to your favorite duck blind powered by Aston’s 5.9 liter V-12, that generates about 580 horsepower!

It’s hard sometimes being a wagon lover, but knowing this one exists really helps me cope. Apparently, somebody else was a wagon lover at the Gooding Auction this year because they scooped it up for the princely sum of $544,000, besting the pre auction estimate of $400,000 - $500,000.

Mark’s picks…

I am typically drawn to racing machines. Perusing over a historic race car while imagining the sound and fury it produced in its history is my automotive zen. This year I was drawn to the 1060 Lotus Type 18 Formula 1 driver by Jim Clark, Graham Hill, John Surtees, Innes Ireland, Trevor Tayor, and Ron Flockhart. It was a cutting-edge design by Colin Chapman. Developed in just five weeks the Type 18 soon would prove to be as fast as it looked garnering its first Formula 1 victory in April of 1960. By the end of the season, Lotus has placed second in the constructors championship. The Chapman Lotus designs are the forerunners to the modern pursuit of performance cars that seek to remove as much weight as possible where small displacement engines in a light weight chassis leading to driving dynamics and speed that can match or surpass large displacement and horsepower differentials.

It sold for $340,000

From the Gooding Description:

“The Type 18 presented here, chassis 374, is the last of just six examples built for Team Lotus. After two Type 18s were written off at the Belgian Grand Prix, this car made its official debut at the French Grand Prix in July 1960, where it was driven by Ron Flockhart to a 6th Place finish. At the British Grand Prix in July, it was entrusted to Team Lotus’ newest driver, Jim Clark, in his fourth-ever Formula 1 event. Clark’s best results in 374 include a 3rd Place finish at the Portuguese Grand Prix, and 2nd Place in the Snetterton Lombank Trophy. He also campaigned the car that year at Solitude, Brands Hatch, and Oulton Park. Grand Prix legends John Surtees and Graham Hill raced 374 in Formula 2 events during 1960.”

And….

I surprised myself with my second pick. I tried to ignore it. I came back to it several times and then just took it all in quietly. I am generally not that interested by many of the pre-war machines that turn up at auction. Not to say I don't appreciate them, but normally, they’re just not my thing. Plus in a line up such that was up for auction this year the competition was fierce. Within a few feet of the entrance to auction tent were millions of dollars waiting to go on the block. There was a huddle of pristine 60’s era Ferraris. How could anything compete with that? This case was different. The 1914 Sunbeam Tourist Trophy Race Car. It was pure analog perfection and amongst a declining group of cars as fewer than 100 pre-1918 racing cars are still in existence. It would sell for $1,1050,000.

The consensus choice…..

In reality, we probably picked our mutual favorite exactly a year ago at the 2023 Gooding Pebble Beach auction. Last year, Gooding teased the sale of this extraordinary 1976 Porsche 935 by having it on display just outside the main viewing tent. We thought it was particularly cruel for them to taunt us like that, but time heals all wounds.

During Car Week especially, we probably over use the term “tour de force.” Frankly, there are a lot of really grand and unbelievable things to be seen and experienced on the Monterey Peninsula every mid-August. This is absolutely one of those things. The 1976 Porsche 935 is THEE 935…the OG, the genesis, the Mack, first among equals…yeah the very first 935, chassis #935-001. By the mid 1970s the world had come to know the production 911 based race car. Take a street car, add some lightness, grow the displacement, flare the fenders, maybe add a little turbo. Pretty standard racecar formula. Pretty much basically “resembles” the porsche 911 street car.

1976 was the year the 911 was truly unleashed. The FIA Group 5 regulations changed, opening lots of avenues for Porsche engineers to exploit the ability to extensively modify an otherwise production based vehicle. What they ended up with was bigger, badder, wider, boost-ier, wing-ier…all the things. The 935 was/is a turbocharged 600+ horsepower monster. This new car, in iconic Martini & Rossi livery was brought to the states and entered into the 1976 Watkins Glen 6 hour race. It qualified second and took the top place on the podium at the end of six hours. Even though this car was presented in an immaculate state of restoration, we hope the new owner flogs it around a racetrack in all of its extroverted flame-spitting glory.

The 935 sold for a bid of $4, 295, 000, just short of its $4,500,00 - $5,500,000 pre-auction estimate. Despite selling lower than its estimate, it was the 10th most expensive car sold at any Car Week auction….interesting.

All in all, it was a pretty great morning meandering between these cars and the scores of other lots on display in the Gooding tent. Neither of us may ever buy a car at Gooding, but taking in the preview there, and at any other the other peninsula auctions is a great value and a great time. Assuming they’ll have us back next year to gawk and blather on, we’ll continue our coffee and cars tradition in 2025.

As our challenged prose can’t do these cars justice, we have a mega gallery below to paint a better picture of what Gooding has to offer.

-The Loud Pedal

Our Mega Gallery