Monterey Car Week 2026 ran from 7th to 16th August and closed with the largest auction week the collector car market has recorded. More than $748 million across the five major sales, up from $432.8 million in 2025. At least 130 cars sold for over a million dollars.
We took three cars, each a one of one, each shown by appointment across three days of the week.
The Cypress Commission
Cypress is the first Mercedes-Benz SL W113 “Pagoda” we have built for the US market in left hand drive, and it made its debut at Car Week.
The car is named for California’s Central Coast and specified for it. The W113’s proportions are among the most resolved of any post-war sports car, and our redefined leaves them alone. What changes is underneath: a 68kWh, 500V powertrain producing 300bhp and 300Nm, an estimated range of more than 230 miles, 0-60mph in under 7.0 seconds, regenerative braking, and both AC and DC fast charging. Weight is circa 1500kg for the Cypress Commission, one of the last of our launch edition spec cars. With a planned reduction of 150kg of weight in the next generation of client cars to be built, and a lower centre of gravity than the OEM cars, this ensures excellent balance and steering feel and a strong power to weight relationship, which keeps the balance and the steering feel the original car was built around.
The Skibo Commission
Alongside our Pagoda showed our Skibo Castle Commission: a one of one Land Rover Series IIA created with The Carnegie Club.
Skibo carries its provenance in the materials. It is a Highland car, made with Scottish craft, built for an estate that has its own century of history behind it. Next to a Pagoda specified for the Pacific coast, it makes the point about commissioning better than any brochure line could.
The Evergreen Commission
Finally, our Evergreen Commission: a US market, left hand drive Porsche 911 (964) RSR built for a note-worth collector, whose story is rooted in motorsport across generations.
Three icons, three very different briefs, three different answers.
What the week said about the market
During Monterey Car Week in August 2026, a massive new record was set for the Mercedes-Benz W113 Pagoda market when a 1968 Mercedes-Benz 280SL sold for a record-breaking $452,500. The landmark transaction occurred via an online auction on Bring a Trailer, perfectly aligning with the high-intensity trading window of Car Week. Senior analysts noted that this particular sale blew past previous market norms, establishing a new all-time high for the W113 generation. This was an example finished in Anthracite Gray over Cognac, a four-speed car taken back to its 1968 self across more than four thousand hours of work. A serious restoration by any measure.
It shows sixty-four miles. It has no air conditioning. And beneath the result, one question kept returning in the comments: will it ever be driven? A car restored this faithfully becomes something to be kept, not used.
A redefined Everrati is held to the same standard, then set a harder task. The body, the proportions, the details that make a Pagoda a Pagoda are preserved with the obsession a concours restoration demands. Everything beneath them is rebuilt – an electric powertrain in place of the six, engineered so the car drives quietly and reliably today and still will in thirty years. Not returned to 1968, instead redefined to outlast it.
Best of Show at the 75th Pebble Beach Concours went to a 1935 Duesenberg SSJ Special Speedster, once owned by Clark Gable and shown by Harry Yeaggy. Ninety-one years old, judged on originality, historical accuracy, mechanical function and presentation.
Two days earlier, chassis 0 of the Ferrari Luce sold at RM Sotheby’s for $40 million: the most expensive electric car ever sold at auction, and the most expensive charity lot. It was a charity sale at roughly sixty times list, so it says more about scarcity and provenance than about powertrains. What it does show is that an electric car can now sit at the very top of a Monterey sale without the fact being the story.
The more useful signal came from the middle of the market. Reporting from the week noted that the best restomods are increasingly treated by collectors as distinct high-value cars in their own right rather than as modified versions of the originals, and that rarity, specification and the name responsible for the build were decisive in what sold well.
That last part is the one we pay attention to. In a redefined car there is no matching-numbers argument to fall back on. What a buyer is underwriting is the judgement and the engineering standard of the people who did the work. Which is why we show cars by appointment and let people drive them.
Justin Lunny, Founder & CEO, Everrati
“Monterey is my favorite week of the year and this one was genuinely special. We brought three one of one cars and showed them by appointment, which meant every single conversation was with someone who had asked to be there. The beauty of not taking a stand this year, also meant we got Everrati the road, which is where they are built to be.
Cypress is the car I’m proudest of. It’s the first Pagoda we’ve built in left-hand drive for the US, and seeing it in California light, on the coast it was designed around, was everything I hoped it would be. What I loved was that people sat in it and asked what it’s like to drive, not what it’s like to convert.
Alongside Skibo Castle and Evergreen, three completely different icons for three completely different owners, it was the clearest picture yet of what commissioning an Everrati actually means. That moment when someone experiences one up close for the first time never gets old.”
Rhodri Darch, Co-CEO, Everrati
“Monterey is always the star event on our calendar, and this year we moved away from the stand arrangement we’ve brought to Monterey the last 4-years. We made a conscious decision to keep the cars accessible and give people the experience of an Everrati from behind the wheel. As for car week – it was a record week, and the shape of it matters more than the total. Buyers paid strongly and electrification was a headline item, which is a milestone in itself, regardless of how some might feel towards the result.”
What was said about Everrati
“I drove the 911 and the Pagoda back to back… I thought the 911 would be my stand out favourite as I am a Porsche guy. It was great and corners so flat and fast – but I just fell in love with the Pagoda – it just makes so much sense. You can hear the nature and enjoy the expereince – and the driveline is super impressive.”
Where next?
Cypress, Skibo Castle and Evergreen are all available to view by appointment and commissions for 2027 delivery are open.
If you would like to see the cars, or talk about a commission of your own, get in touch.
