The Cheapest Cars Sold At The Monterey Car Week Auctions Are Absolutely Full Of Whimsy

In case the number of Koenigseggs and Duesenbergs wasn’t an indication, Monterey Car Week is one of the highest-end car celebrations in the world. An AirBNB house might cost more than your daily driver, certain event tickets run into the four-figure range, and the auctions on the central coast are among the fanciest places anyone could buy a car.

Under these gavels, records are set. A $300,000 Volkswagen Beetle limousine, a $25.3 million Ferrari 250 GT California Spider Competizione, a $26 million Ferrari SP3 Daytona, these are all cars and dollar figures from this year. Machines trading hands for unfathomable sums, sometimes the sort of money we wouldn’t see in several lifetimes.

However, what if you aren’t descended from robber barons? What if you’ve never owned crypto, don’t know the difference between an LLC and an S-Corp, and aren’t friends with anyone who owns a Bugatti? Well, if you were in Monterey last week and found yourself at the right auctions, you’d have been in luck. Here are five delightful cars that sold during Monterey Car Week, each going for under $11,000.

1924 Georges Richard Unic 10hp Type L2 Boulangère: $10,640

Well, well, well, what do we have here? An exquisite commercial vehicle with a chassis from French manufacturer Unic, that’s what. Starting with a platform revered for its durability and low running costs, this particular machine was coachbuilt by Carrosserie Girardo Frères to be a bakery van, and it has the perfect vibe. This model is designated as having 12 CV, which is really just a taxation formula based on the number of cylinders times the bore of one cylinder times the stroke of one cylinder times the maximum engine speed times a coefficient based on the number of cylinders, 0.00015 in the case of a four-cylinder engine. How much horsepower does this thing make? Honestly, who cares?

Come on, tell me this isn’t one of the coolest ways of spending $10,640 on a vehicle. It just oozes charm out of every shut line, sunny and whimsical like a cartoon come to life. If you drive this in public, you’ll be actively making the lives of everyone around you better, and in that context, $10,640 spent at the Bonhams auction isn’t much money at all.

1974 Honda Z600: $10,080

What happens when a motorcycle company makes a sporty city-sized runabout? You end up with the Honda Z600, a pre-Civic piece of Honda history. With a fizzy little 598 cubic-centimeter air-cooled two-cylinder engine under the hood and front-wheel-drive, you get a motorcycle-like soundtrack in a car just barely big enough to squeeze four small people into, in a pinch.

This particular Z600 is special because it’s a 1974 model, one of only 918 built for export, and sold in Germany after the Z600 had been discontinued in America. With only 41,141 documented kilometers on the clock, it’s also finished in a fantastic shade of orange with an equally fantastic name: Pop Orange. Suits the bubbly personality of the car, doesn’t it? Whoever bought this for $10,080 at the Broad Arrow Auctions, um, auction, I salute you.

1970 Fiat 500 Giardiniera: $7,840

Speaking of small cars, how about this Fiat 500 Giardiniera auctioned off at Bonhams? The Cinquecento was the car that really put Italy on four wheels, a style icon of la dolce vita, living it up in ways big or small. It was the first car to ever win a Compasso d’Oro, and it spawned plenty of variants. While the hot Abarth is something of an icon with its perma-popped engine cover, the Giardiniera wagon was the longest-running single variant of the 500, and the last one to feature rear-hinged doors.

Technically, being a 1970 model, this is an Autobianchi Giardiniera, but that’s all just semantics. It was built in the same factory as previous Giardinieras, and features the same half-liter air-cooled two-cylinder engine as most 500s. This particular example received new paint and new upholstery in 2024, and while it isn’t perfectly original, who cares? It’s a good deal at $7,840, and comes with the sort of squee-factor normally reserved for labradog puppies and baby hedgehogs.

1957 Volkswagen Buggy: $2,912

Now we’re getting into the really cheap seats, and Bonhams had some true picks for those on a PBR budget. Even though this year’s Car Week saw a new Type 1 Volkswagen record set, the German brand made millions of the things and some of them have been modified in strange and compelling ways. Just take a look at this thing which sold for $2,912, auction premiums included.

Based on a ’57 Beetle, this thing’s a true custom featuring portal axles and suspension from a 1956 to 1957 Type 2 van, a tube chassis, and coachwork that can only be described as bespoke. There’s a whiff of Kubelwagen to the look, but even though we don’t really know when it was turned from an economy car into a dune basher, you get the sense that this came from the primordial ooze of the dune buggy wave. It looks like an absolute blast, and because it’s just so inexpensive, it’a dune buggy you could actually treat with a sense of abandon.

1966 Legrand Mk 3: $2,800

No, that’s not a typo. An actual car with an engine sold for a mere $2,800 at Monterey Car Week’s Bonhams auction, and it might be the most fun-per-dollar out there. This Legrand is a 48-horsepower Fiat-engined open-wheel race car, and while it is missing a nosecone, doesn’t it look like an absolute blast?

Featuring extensive use of magnesium and several hydraulic systems, this open-wheeler is a bit of a project, albeit one that’s pretty advanced for its day. I dig quirky touches like the pump on the end of the transaxle to get fluid up to that high-mount heat exchanger and the extremely long rear trailing arms, and with only about 20 of these things ever made, whoever had the high bid will probably be the only person on their block with one of these.

So there we are, proof that generational wealth isn’t required to score a car from those fancy Monterey Car Week auctions, and a head-turning car at that. Sure, blue-chip Ferraris are cool, but if you’re surrounded by Daytonas and 250 GTs, a bright yellow 1920s bakery truck or an early Honda or a seemingly homebuilt dune buggy is going to really attract attention.

Top graphic images: Bonhams, Broad Arrow Auctions

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