And, at last, two 1989-1994 Nissan Skylines will be offered this week. They’re expected to sell well because the strict 25-year import rule banning them in the U.S., leading to pent-up demand, has now lifted.

The Necessary Soft Landing
The downshift in overall sales isn’t for lack of funds among buyers. It’s more closely related to the fact that, without a few double-digit-million-dollar cars on offer, the overall sum will be lower. This year in Monterey, for example, 94 cars are valued at more than $1 million, down from 104. Just five cars are valued above $10 million, half last year’s figure.

The decrease comes because classic cars of this caliber are a finite resource. The market topped out in 2014, when many high-profile, high-priced cars—a 1964 Ferrari GTB/C Speciale, say—finally came out of long-term ownership and were sold. Renewed in long-term ownership, they may not return to market for at least a decade.

“The sky is not falling,” says Jonathan Klinger, the spokesman for Hagerty. “This is just a wait-and-see market favoring buyers versus sellers. And from an economic standpoint, there are a lot of people who are fairly optimistic about buying. Just look at the stock market.”

Balance their absence with the relative strength of the euro versus the dollar and the fact that this year, pure investors and speculators have other, potentially more lucrative, places to put their money: real estate, energy, commodities. It all leads to the generally cooler numbers this year.

Klinger calls it a “soft landing” from 2014.

“It goes along with what the rest of the market is right now,” he says. “We are basically back to 2013 levels, and as we had been saying at that time, this is what we needed to happen.”

If the buying momentum had continued rising after 2014, it would have become unsustainable, he says. “If it is a market driven by speculators, then you start to worry. And that’s not the case here.”

Potential Top Sellers
Not that there won’t be primo cars for sale in Carmel—by a long shot.

Although only five cars are listed for more than $10 million across the Gooding, Bonhams, Sothebys, Mecum, Russo and Steele, and Worldwide Auctioneer sales—last year, Gooding alone had four cars take more than $10 million apiece—Hagerty predicts that the top-10 expected big sellers will each take more than $5 million. And that’s just fine, auctioneers say.