Concours · 2026
The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering
August 14, 2026Quail Lodge & Golf Club · Carmel, California
The fixture
The Quail is Monterey week’s most exclusive single day — a motorsports gathering on the lodge’s golf course where attendance is capped, tickets are balloted, and manufacturers stage their most important reveals of the year.
Its fields mix pre-war elegance with modern hypercar debuts; more new limited-series cars are announced on this lawn than anywhere else.
Where limited series are born — The Quail’s reveals become the catalogue’s next chapters.
- Dates
- August 14, 2026
- Venue
- Quail Lodge & Golf Club
- Place
- Carmel, California (US)
- Type
- Concours
- Dated from
- peninsula.com
Results from this fixture feed the ledger — record sales, class wins and documented outings land in the affected cars’ files.
The origin
2003
The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering debuted during Monterey Car Week in 2003. The Hon. Sir Michael Kadoorie, then chairman of The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, is named by the event as its founder; Gordon McCall is its co-founder. It is held on the greens of Quail Lodge Golf Club in Carmel, California. Now part of The Peninsula Signature Events, it keeps McCall as director of motorsports and in charge of entrant selection.
How it runs
- Friday gathering
- For 2026, The Quail was a Friday fixture: 14 August, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., at The Quail Golf Club in Carmel. The Peninsula announced hundreds of displayed cars, themed food pavilions, Fireside Chats and live entertainment. It was distinct from the Pebble Beach Concours and from the separate Broad Arrow auction.
- Established and featured classes
- Eight established classes returned in 2026, spanning Custom Coachwork, pre-war and post-war sports, post-war racing, motorcycles, supercars and Ferraris. Four featured classes covered Route 66, the Lamborghini Diablo, Japanese GTs and Ferrari F40. A new Collector Series opened with cars from Bruce Meyer’s collection.
- Rolex Best of Show
- Class honours culminate in the Rolex Circle of Champions Best of Show. The winning car joins the Circle, while its owner receives an engraved Oyster Perpetual Datejust. The 2023 Quail winner was later a Peninsula Classics Best of the Best finalist, selected among cars that had won major concours awards.
- Official auction partner
- Broad Arrow became the official auction partner in 2026 and held The Quail Auction at the golf club on Thursday 13 and Friday 14 August, with the Friday session overlapping the Gathering. It is a separate auction fixture. Bonhams’ 28th annual Quail Auction ran in 2025 before its Monterey sale moved to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
On the record
- 2003
In 2003, William E. Connor II’s 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Touring Spyder took the first Best of Show. The car returned for the 2012 tenth-anniversary display and commemorative poster.
- 2022
Gordon Murray Automotive made its American debut at The Quail with the T.50 and T.33, with Gordon Murray present. William Pope’s 1956 Jaguar D-Type took the Rolex Circle of Champions Best of Show.
- 2023
Anne Brockinton Lee’s 1956 Ferrari 410 Superamerica “Superfast 1”, one of four special-bodied prototypes and the only Pininfarina 410 Superamerica prototype, won Best of Show from more than 200 entrants.
- 2024
Pagani publicly debuted the Utopia Roadster at The Quail, with Horacio Pagani attending. Sam and Emily Mann’s 1937 Delahaye Type 135 took Best of Show; it began as an open-wheel racer, and a Delahaye historian believes it was driven by René Dreyfus in the Prix du Million.
- 2025
Bugatti gave the one-off Brouillard, the first Programme Solitaire creation, its global physical debut at The Quail. Art Zafiropoulo’s 1996 Ferrari F50 GT1 chassis 001, the only factory-assembled prototype, took Best of Show.
The consignment
58 cars coming to the block
Every documented lot consigned to this sale, grouped by manufacturer, with the house’s estimate beside each. Figures are pre-sale estimates — the result lands in each car’s file once the hammer falls.
Ferrari
13 lots · Maranello, ItalyThe benchmark every other marque is measured against.
Bugatti
2 lots · Molsheim, FranceArt, engineering and obsession, built in numbers that never reach the market.
Porsche
19 lots · Stuttgart, GermanyThe engineer’s marque — depth of bloodline no rival can match.
Lamborghini
7 lots · Sant'Agata, ItalyThe marque that invented the mid-engined supercar — and never stopped shouting.
McLaren
2 lots · Woking, EnglandThe carbon-tub purist — every road car descends from the F1.
RUF
2 lots · Pfaffenhausen, GermanyA manufacturer in its own right, not a tuner — Porsche’s shape carrying RUF’s engineering.
Hennessey
1 lot · USATexas horsepower without apology — the tuner turned manufacturer chasing 300 mph with the Venom.
Shelby
2 lots · Los Angeles, USACarroll Shelby’s V8 roadsters — America’s most valuable sports cars.
Mercedes-Benz
6 lots · Stuttgart, GermanyThe inventor of the automobile — and owner of the most expensive car ever sold.
Bentley
1 lot · Crewe, EnglandThe Bentley Boys’ Le Mans winners — brute torque dressed as a gentleman’s express.
Nissan
1 lot · Yokohama, JapanJapan’s mass-market major — and the maker of the Skyline GT-R the road learned to fear.
Jaguar
1 lot · Coventry, EnglandLe Mans glory in the fifties — and the fastest car in the world in 1992.
Aston Martin
1 lot · Gaydon, EnglandBritish grand touring — hand-built grace with a racing pulse beneath.