Car Week 2026: Your Events Guide

Car Week is not one event. It is roughly 35 events running simultaneously across seven towns over ten days, with a $650 fairway ticket at one end of the access spectrum and more than a dozen genuinely excellent free events at the other. First-timers and even longtime Peninsula residents often underestimate how much of the week is open without a badge, a pass, or a reservation.

This guide covers what is worth attending, what it costs, and how to structure a week that works whether you are a serious collector, a curious resident, or someone who simply wants to watch extraordinary machines move through an extraordinary landscape.

 

Free and Low-Cost Events Worth Your Time

The Tour d'Elegance — Thursday Morning

This is the week's best free spectacle and one of its most underattended events. On Thursday morning, every car entered in the Sunday Concours leaves the 18th fairway and drives the county roads — along Highway 1, through the Del Monte Forest, past the coastal headlands — to prove it is a functioning automobile rather than simply a rolling sculpture. The route passes through public roads and can be watched from dozens of points along the way. Seeing a 1937 Alfa Romeo or a 1962 Ferrari GTO at speed on a public road, with the Pacific in the background, is a different experience from seeing it parked on the lawn. Get there early. Pick a spot on the coast near Carmel or along 17-Mile Drive and wait.

Concours on the Avenue — Wednesday Evening, Ocean Avenue

Carmel's Ocean Avenue closes to traffic on Wednesday evening and becomes a display field for collector cars, concept vehicles, and the occasional race car. Entry is free, the crowd is genuinely mixed between enthusiasts and curious residents, and the setting — the boutiques and galleries of Carmel village as backdrop — gives it a social energy the more ticketed events lack. It tends to run from late afternoon into the evening and pairs well with dinner afterward.

The Concours d'Lemons — Saturday, Seaside

The intentional counterpoint to everything else happening this week. The Concours d'Lemons celebrates the wrongly maligned and the hopelessly optimistic — the cars that were terrible in their day and have only gotten more so with time. Entry is low-cost, the judging categories are absurd by design, and the crowd includes a remarkable number of people who also attend the Sunday Concours. It is one of the most genuinely enjoyable afternoons of the week and requires no background in automotive history to appreciate.

Legends of the Autobahn — Thursday, Quail Lodge

A marque gathering focused on German manufacturers — BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Porsche — with a show quality that rivals events charging several times the modest entry fee. The setting at Quail Lodge is pleasant, the cars are exceptional, and the crowd skews toward knowledgeable enthusiasts rather than the general public. Worth the entry for anyone with a serious interest in postwar German engineering.

Pacific Grove Rotary Concours Auto Rally — Saturday Morning

One of the week's most genuinely local events. The Pacific Grove waterfront hosts a concours organized by the local Rotary Club, with a participant mix that includes everything from prewar classics to well-preserved American muscle. Entry is free to spectators, the setting along the coastal bluff is excellent, and it runs in the morning before the day's other events heat up.

 

You do not need a $650 fairway ticket to have an extraordinary Car Week. The Tour d'Elegance alone, watched from the right spot on the coast, is worth the trip.

 

The Ticketed Events Worth Planning Around

The Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance — Sunday, 18th Fairway

The centerpiece of the week and the reason all of this exists. One hundred and seventy-five of the world's finest collector cars, judged by category on the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach, against the backdrop of the Pacific. This year marks the 75th edition, with Ferrari as the featured marque and a program that emphasizes competition history and coachbuilt bodywork from the Vignale era. Tickets at the fairway level are $650. The Motorcade to the Show on Saturday morning, when entrants arrive on the fairway for the first time, can be watched from public vantage points along the route for free.

The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering — Friday, Carmel Valley

The most curated single-day event of the week, held at Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley. The Quail limits attendance more aggressively than any other Car Week event, which produces a crowd-to-car ratio that allows for genuine engagement with the vehicles. The featured classes change year to year. Tickets are typically $900 to $1,200 and sell out well in advance. If you did not secure tickets months ago, the waiting list is worth joining for future years.

Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion — Thursday through Sunday, WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca

The racing counterpart to the Concours. Historic race cars from the 1950s through the 1980s compete on the Laguna Seca circuit over four days, with the full grid of period-correct machinery producing a sensory experience that no static display can replicate. Single-day tickets are available and are a reasonable entry point. The Thursday and Friday qualifying sessions are less crowded than the weekend race days and equally spectacular.

 

The Auctions: How to Attend Without Bidding

Five auction houses hold sales during Car Week, and auction previews — where the consigned cars are displayed before bidding opens — are among the week's most accessible events for anyone who wants to see exceptional cars at close range without purchasing anything.

Gooding and Company: One of the most consistently curated auction catalogs of the week, held at Pebble Beach. Preview access is typically available to registered guests and allows close inspection of the consigned vehicles.

RM Sotheby's: The week's largest sale by value, also at Pebble Beach. The live auction format and the quality of the consignments make it one of the most attended events of the week among serious collectors.

Bonhams: Moved to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca this year after more than two decades at Quail Lodge. A strong catalog with a slightly more accessible price range than the top-tier Pebble Beach auctions.

Broad Arrow: Debuting as the official auction partner at The Quail this year, replacing Bonhams in that role. A newer house with strong collector relationships and a catalog that skews toward postwar European sports cars.

Mecum: The highest-volume sale of the week, held at the Hyatt Regency Monterey. The catalog runs several hundred cars across a broader price range than the other houses, with more accessible entry points for bidders and browsers alike.

 

How to Navigate the Week

The single most important piece of logistical advice for Car Week: do not plan to drive between events on the days when traffic peaks. Saturday and Sunday of Concours weekend are the worst. The roads between Carmel, Pebble Beach, Monterey, and Carmel Valley move slowly when 100,000 people are trying to use them simultaneously.

Residents who have been through this before know to park at one destination and walk, to schedule errands on Monday through Wednesday before the week reaches full intensity, and to identify which events are worth the effort of fighting traffic and which are better experienced in the morning before the crowds arrive. The Tour d'Elegance on Thursday morning, caught from a well-chosen vantage point along the route, requires almost no logistical effort and delivers more than most ticketed events.

Ocean Avenue in Carmel is effectively closed to functional use on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Plan accordingly. The 17-Mile Drive gates are open to ticket holders and residents throughout the week but move slowly on peak days. Highway 1 between Carmel and Monterey is the main artery and the main bottleneck. Patience is the correct strategy.

The Ruiz Group will be out in it all week. If you have questions about any of the events or want recommendations on where to watch the Tour, we are happy to share what we know.

 

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