August is always a high-water mark for the collector car market, thanks to the Monterey Car Week auctions that showcase some of the world’s rarest and most valuable machines. This year was no exception – total sales surged, world records were set, and the headlines highlighted both Ferrari’s enduring dominance and the widening appeal of other segments. Beyond Monterey, online auctions also delivered their strongest month ever, setting records for both dollar volume and sold listings, with 20 cars trading above the $1M mark.
At Monterey, sales reached $427.5M across five auction houses – the second-biggest result in history, just shy of the record set in 2022. Ten new world records were set for Ferrari models, led by a $26M Ferrari Daytona SP3 sold for charity. But if you strip out that single sale, Monterey’s $401.5M total was must closer to last year’s volume (but still 5% more).
While 8 of the Top 10 cars were Ferraris, we also saw more variety in the $1M+ tier, with Custom Porsche 911s, BMW M1s, and Dino 246 GTSs all joining the ranks. The results from August suggest that the collector market is not just holding steady, but evolving in new directions.
Check out the full results from Monterey 2025 >
Top 10 Sales in August 2025
Ferraris dominated August’s top sales, taking 8 of the 10 spots and spanning seven decades of history. The live auctions in Monterey delivered the biggest headlines, as expected, but online auctions also flexed their muscles with 8 million-dollar results.
Top Online Sales
Beyond the Top 10, we saw a total of 98 sales above $1M – and 8 of those were online, all from Bring a Trailer. In fact, BaT had it’s 2nd-highest sale ever with this 2014 Ferrari LaFerrari that sold for $4.475M.
Top 10 Flips & Flops in August 2025
Each month, we track “Flips” and “Flops,” which we define as cars with documented previous sale records. This enables us to calculate the net gain or loss and the time elapsed since the last sale. While some purists argue that a genuine Flip/Flop occurs only within a 12-month timeframe from the previous sale, we believe this list offers entertainment and valuable insights that a narrower window would overlook. Admittedly, it’s plausible that cars have changed hands in private transactions between these public listings; nonetheless, this data provides valuable insights into which cars have realized significant gains or losses compared to their previous sales. Enjoy this data at your own discretion.
Flips
Flops
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Market Busters in August 2025
While most statistics and reviews tend to concentrate on the upper echelon of the market, noteworthy examples are consistently emerging across all segments of the industry. Our “Market Busters” chart showcases listings that broke records within their respective market segments and across all value tiers.
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Year-to-Date
Online auctions are having their best year ever, setting new records and proving that buyers and sellers are comfortable trading high-value cars from behind a keyboard. Live auctions, meanwhile, are finding their footing in a changing landscape. Instead of concentrating on the traditional tentpoles of Scottsdale, Amelia, and Monterey, more events are spread across the calendar, creating a steadier flow of sales throughout the year.
Results are included from the following auctions in August 2025:
Online Auctions:
* A Market on CLASSIC.COM is a grouping of comparable vehicles that have, at a minimum, the same Make, Model, and Model Generation. When relevant for purposes of valuation, a Market may be further segmented by Model Variant, Trim, Transmission Type, Body Style, and other factors.
**The CLASSIC.COM Market Benchmark (CMB) is a benchmark value for vehicles in a given Market based on data accumulated by CLASSIC.COM and calculated by a proprietary algorithm that takes into account volume and recency of each data point. CMB can be used to assess the performance of a market over a given time period. However, it does not represent the value of a specific vehicle.
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