MONTEREY, Calif. -- Even in the collectible car market, there are the 1 percenters and everyone else.
Global collectors here recently spent an intense quarter-hour in an auction tent on Fisherman's Wharf, bidding by phone or in person on a rare Jaguar D-type race car, the 1956 winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Starting at $10 million and eventually rising in $100,000 increments, the car was sold for $21.8 million to an anonymous bidder. The applause lasted nearly a half minute as the audience, containing more than a few Britons, realized it was a record price for a British-made car sold at auction.
"The car gave an Oscar-worthy performance on the block," said Ian Kelleher, the West Coast managing director of the auction house, RM Sotheby's, that sold the car at one of the five auctions here that ran over four days, Aug. 18-21, at the collector-car world's biggest annual event, the Pebble Beach car week.
But as an indicator of an overall softening in demand for less prestigious collectible vehicles -- those in the comparatively modest $100,000 to $1 million range -- consider the fate of a 1968 Maserati Ghibli coupe.
Its white leather was dirty and creased, and the paint was far from perfect. In need of a thorough refreshing, the car sold for $132,000, well below its presale estimate of $160,000 to $200,000.
"In today's market, cars that are ready to enjoy still inspire spirited bidding," said Tony Rackley a Los Angeles-based collector-dealer and a 16-year veteran of the Monterey auctions. "Cars with needs don't."
The Maserati was but one of many signs at this year's auctions that passions are cooling in the lower tiers of the collectible-car world.
While people with that sort of money to spend may not be emblematic of the larger economy, a softening of the collector-car market could reflect broader uncertainties around the world. Concerns about the United States election, Britain's "Brexit"-- the vote in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union -- an assertive Russia and slack demand in the global economy have made some people think twice about sacrificing liquidity on a discretionary purchase like a classic car, Kelleher said.
There is simply less exuberance in the car marketplace than three or four years ago, when the moneyed classes were bouncing back from the world financial crisis.
As David Gooding, founder of the auction house Gooding & Co., put it, "Buyers are both discriminating and rational at the moment."
At this year's Monterey auctions, according to preliminary data provided by Hagerty, a classic-car insurer, the so-called sell-through rate for cars initially priced above $100,000 was the lowest in Monterey since 2000, dropping to 57 percent this year from 72 percent in 2015.
That means only slightly more than half the 1,273 cars up for auction here found buyers.
The total dollar volume of sales of the five auction companies at the event -- Bonhams, Gooding, Mecum Auctions, RM Sotheby's and Russo and Steele -- were down, too, to about $340 million this year, from about $395 million in 2015. And last year's total was down from $403 million in 2014.
The annual Monterey auctions are timed to coincide with the nearby Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, a car show that has been held on the 18th fairway of the golf course since 1950. It attracts some of the most beautiful, elegant and expensive automobiles on the planet, all vying for best of show. This year's honor went to a 1936 Lancia Astura Pinin Farina Cabriolet, the first best of show Pebble Beach win for Lancia and for the car's owner, Richard Mattei.
Other related events that have sprung up during Pebble Beach week include the ultraupscale Quail motor sports gathering. The Quail organizers held what was meant to be an annual Peninsula Classics Best of the Best Award, bringing together last year's winner of the Concours d'Elegance and the winners of five other prestigious international concours. The jury, which included Jay Leno, Ralph Lauren and Henry Ford III, selected a 1937 Talbo-Lago T-150-C SS as the inaugural winner.
But with the auction houses anticipating slightly less exuberant spending this year, both Gooding and RM Sotheby's -- whose average sales prices exceed $1 million -- came to Monterey with as much fresh-to-market, unimpeachable inventory as they could muster.
Led by the sale of a 1959 Ferrari 250 GT California Spider for $18.15 million, Gooding had its highest overall two-day result -- about $130 million -- since the company's Pebble Beach debut in 2004.
RM Sotheby's had huge individual successes, too, not only with the Jaguar D-type but with the first Shelby Cobra, for $13.75 million, and a magnificent 1939 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Lungo Spider that went for $19.8 million.
But those were exceptions.
One car that was emblematic of a cooling market was the 1965 Porsche 911 coupe offered by Bonhams.
Before 2013, in the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the 911, prices rose steadily for early models of the car. But more recently they have been falling. The one up for auction here was bid up to $175,000, which was arguably a fair price in the current market. But because that did not meet the reserve price set by the owner, the car went unsold.
So did a 1971 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona, in an odd shade of light yellow. A bid of just $520,000 against a presale estimate of $600,000 to $750,000 was not enough to pry the car loose. Maybe the market was unwilling to accept this most macho of Ferraris in a pastel shade. As with the wallflower 911, the car was loaded on a trailer and sent home.
If the collectibles market is having a soft landing, experts say that is infinitely preferable to a crash. Had things continued as they did from 2011 through 2015, with some cars increasing in value by as much as 300 percent in just one year, collectors and auctioneers would have been fearing a bubble that might burst at any time, just as it did in 1991.
As the auto writer Peter Bohr recalled that cataclysm in the February 1994 issue of Road & Track: "Alas, the frenzy reached dizzying heights and then fizzled with the dawn of the nineties. And the ending was brutal for many."
As car market corrections go, the downturn this time is more like letting a bit of air out of the tires.
SundayMonday Business on 08/28/2016