Published: 02 July 2026
Returning to the Portola Hotel and Monterey Conference Center for its 29th year, RM Sotheby's flagship Monterey, California sale has long operated as something beyond a market event. It is the annual convergence point for the world's most serious collectors, the place where rarity and provenance are tested most rigorously and rewarded most handsomely.
The 2026 edition continues that tradition. Among the notable offerings across three auction days this August, three lots stand apart: a Pebble Beach-honoured Aston Martin of breathless rarity, the sole Le Mans competition Teardrop Coupe ever built, and the most extreme variant of Porsche's visionary 1980s supercar. Each tells a story that extends well beyond its specification sheet.
1962 Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato
$12,000,000 - $15,000,000 USD
To speak of the DB4 GT Zagato is to invoke something close to consensus — a rare thing in a field that prizes individual taste above almost all else. Among the small number of automobiles that have combined genuine competition provenance, extreme rarity, lightweight coachwork of enduring beauty, and the kind of mechanical pedigree that serious collectors demand, the DB4 GT Zagato occupies a position that is essentially uncontested. Only 19 were built. They almost never surface publicly, so when one does, it commands attention.
The car offered here, chassis 0186/R, is the 14th example produced by date of completion, assembled at Newport-Pagnell in December 1961 and dispatched almost immediately to Australia — making it the only DB4 GT Zagato originally sold into Australian ownership. Its first competitive outings were swift and emphatic. In February 1962 at Calder, driven by three-time Australian Grand Prix winner Doug Whiteford, the Zagato won the GT Handicap. A week later at Longford, Whiteford took the GT Scratch and the South Pacific GT Championship, with the car clocked at 145 mph through a flying section in sports car trim. Subsequent outings brought further class wins at hillclimbs and circuit events, before evolving Australian regulations — permitting temporary-roof cars to compete in the GT class — effectively ended the car's racing career before it had suffered any serious consequence. The original Zagato coachwork and matching-numbers engine both survive.
What followed was a comprehensive restoration conducted by Aston Martin specialist Richard Williams in the early 2000s, which included a return of the coachwork to Zagato's own Milan atelier. At completion, the car was shown at the 2002 Louis Vuitton Concours d'Elegance, where it was named Best of Show. Further class awards came at Villa d'Este and Pebble Beach.
The present owner, who acquired the car at RM Sotheby's New York sale in December 2015, subsequently commissioned Kevin Kay Restorations — working in close consultation with independent Aston Martin historian Stephen Archer — for a ten-month bare-metal refinish focused on absolute historical accuracy. The car returned to Pebble Beach in 2019, competed in the special Zagato Centennial Postwar class, and won both its class and The Vitesse — Elegance Trophy. It was one of four finalists for Best of Show, a distinction that requires little elaboration given that a post-war car has won the honour only twice in seven decades. That 0186/R is offered with its matching-numbers engine, predominantly original Zagato coachwork, and a documented history stretching from the 1962 Australian sports car season to the lawns of Pebble Beach renders it, quite simply, among the most significant Aston Martins likely to appear in any auction room this decade.
1938 Talbot-Lago T150-C SS Teardrop Coupe by Figoni et Falaschi
$7,000,000 - $8,000,000 USD
The Figoni et Falaschi Teardrop coupe is one of those designs that produces a consistent response across generations, cultures, and levels of automotive knowledge: the immediate understanding that something extraordinary has been achieved. The sweeping fenders, the steeply raked screen, the sculpted fastback tail — Giuseppe Figoni's Goutte d'Eau is not so much a product of Art Deco styling as its fullest automotive expression. Eleven examples were built to the so-called "New York" configuration. Only one was built for competition.
Chassis 90117 was commissioned by Philippe Régnier de Massa, a member of one of France's oldest noble families, with a specific purpose: to race at Le Mans. The car's specifications were not merely aesthetic — it sat two inches lower and four inches longer than its siblings, with a reduced frontal area, competition driving lights, additional reinforcement in the engine bay, a long-range fuel tank with external filler cap, and a heart-shaped sunroof to manage ventilation during extended competition use. In June 1939, de Massa and co-driver Norbert-Jean Mahé started the 24 Hours of Le Mans, running as high as ninth before being eliminated on the 88th lap. Ten weeks later, the world was at war.
The car's subsequent history reads as a Cold War artefact as much as an automotive one. By 1942 it had found its way to Germany, stripped of its engine, acquired there by a private owner near Berlin. It remained effectively inaccessible behind the Iron Curtain for nearly five decades, known to Western collectors largely through rumour. When the Wall fell in 1989 it was sold, and eventually acquired by San Diego-based Georg Lingenbrink, who conducted a six-year restoration, correctly identified the car through extensive correspondence with marque authorities, and sourced a correct replacement engine from England. The completed car debuted at Pebble Beach. A later period in the collection of enthusiast Oscar Davis saw further restoration investment and the addition of the Trofeo BMW Group Best of Show at Villa d'Este in 2010, followed by the Louis Vuitton Concours Classic Award in 2011. The present owner has maintained the car in preserved condition since 2022, with recent service by RM Auto Restoration. The sole competition Teardrop in existence, 90117 is a piece of automotive history with few genuine equivalents.
1989 Porsche 959 Sport
$5,000,000 - $6,000,000 USD
The Porsche 959 requires no defence as a technological landmark. Intelligent four-wheel drive, adjustable suspension, tire pressure monitoring and composite construction are features considered advanced today, but were standard-issue on this machine when it was introduced in 1986. What is less widely understood is quite how rare the Sport variant is within an already scarce model. Of 292 production 959s built, only 29 were completed to Sport specification: lighter, harder, and more powerful than the standard Komfort car, with a roll cage, racing harnesses, cloth upholstery, and a coilover suspension setup in place of the adaptive system. Output increased to 508 horsepower. Weight fell by 100 kilograms.
The example offered here, chassis 5013, is one of 11 Sports finished in Grand Prix White, and one of only two known to be equipped with air conditioning; an unusual specification on a car from which Porsche had otherwise systematically removed comfort features in the pursuit of reduced mass. Originally invoiced in September 1989, it was delivered to a South Korean collector with a significant 959 holding, before passing to German Formula 1 driver Nick Heidfeld in 2007. Heidfeld commissioned Porsche Classic in Stuttgart to conduct a thorough mechanical overhaul in 2017, investing nearly 115,000 euro in the car, including a restoration of the Motronic engine management system to its original factory specification. That work was completed in December 2021. The present owner, only the third from new, acquired the car in 2022. It displays 4,788 kilometres from new. The numbers-matching engine, tools, and both German and English manuals accompany the sale, along with a Porsche Classic Technical Certificate. For a car of this rarity and mechanical integrity, scarcely driven and carefully maintained across three owners, the offering is a genuinely unusual one.
