Goodwood Revival auction 2026: the one sale that will tell us where the market is

Table of Contents

• One sale instead of two
• What last September actually said
• The catalogue
• Four things I will be watching
• Meanwhile, at the other end of the market
• Saturday, 10.30

A year ago the Bonhams sale at the Goodwood Revival made just over £5 million. For most auction houses that is a respectable afternoon. For this one, in this setting, it was the lowest Revival total K500 has recorded since 2014. The marquee was full of tweed and trilbies and the bidding was thin.

This Saturday Bonhams goes again, and the stakes are higher, because it has put all its Goodwood eggs in one basket.

One sale instead of two

Until this year Bonhams ran two Goodwood sales, one at the Festival of Speed in July and one at the Revival in September. In a release on 2 July it announced it would combine them "into one outstanding sale at The Goodwood Revival on 19 September". Julie David, who runs the car department globally, put it down to the calendar: with the two events "now ever closer in timings", the house wanted "to preserve the quality and quantity of the cars our vendors and buyers expect".

That is a reasonable call. The two meetings now sit barely ten weeks apart, and splitting the good consignments between them risks two middling catalogues instead of one strong one.

But look at what the combined sale has to follow. Last July's Festival of Speed sale made £10.2 million at an 80% sell-through, led by a delivery-mileage Mercedes-AMG One at £2,456,600. Bonhams called it the highest total for a UK car sale that year. Add last September's Revival and Goodwood gave Bonhams a little over £15 million from two sales. This year there is one, it is built mostly from older cars, and there is no July hypercar crowd to prop it up.

What last September actually said

The detail from 2025 is worth having in front of you, because it is the baseline everyone in the marquee will be measuring against.

K500's count had 74 cars offered and 41 sold, a total of £5,041,831 against £6,118,992 the year before. The Classic Valuer's figures put the share of sold cars hammering below their low estimate at 39%, up from 26% in 2024. So the sale rate held up, but more of what sold went cheaply. A 1966 AC Cobra racer guided at £1.5 million to £2 million went home unsold.

The top result was an Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato Sanction III at £1,079,000, over a £700,000 to £1 million estimate. The one everyone remembers, though, was further down the order. A 1948 Healey Elliott saloon, estimated at £60,000 to £80,000, made £201,250, a record for the model. It had belonged to Count Johnny Lurani, who won the touring class in both the Targa Florio and the Mille Miglia with it in 1948, and it had been in the same hands since 1963.

A car that had not been on the market for sixty years, with a story you could check, made two and a half times its top estimate in the weakest Revival sale in over a decade. If you want a one-paragraph summary of the 2026 market, that will do nicely.

The catalogue

This year's sale is led by a 1962 Aston Martin DB4 Vantage Convertible at £700,000 to £900,000. Bonhams says only 70 DB4 convertibles were built between 1961 and 1963, and fewer than 35 left the factory with the 266bhp SS Vantage version of the 3.7-litre six. This one is gunmetal grey over light grey leather, was first registered in October 1962 and has had two owners since new, with the first family keeping it until 2012. It has recently been restored and has covered under 76,000 miles.

Behind it sits the pick of the competition cars, a 1936 Aston Martin 2-litre Speed Model two-seater at £500,000 to £600,000. It was raced in 1938, ran in the 1948 Spa 24 Hours, and belonged to Nick Mason of Pink Floyd from the late 1970s.

One absentee is worth a mention. The 1929 Bugatti Type 35C that Bonhams trailed in July as a no-reserve lot, guided at £500,000 to £700,000, is not in the published catalogue.

Then the two oddities, which I rather like. A Nissan P35 prototype, built in 1992 to 1993 specification and guided at £400,000 to £500,000, was built for Group C and never raced, because the World Sportscar Championship folded before it could. It now carries a 4.2-litre Menard V12. And a 1991 Jordan-Ford 191, chassis 191/3, at £350,000 to £525,000, still in its 7-Up livery and in one ownership since it was bought from Eddie Jordan in 1992. Andrea de Cesaris drove it. It comes without an engine.

Below those the catalogue fills out with a 1961 DB4 Series III at £350,000 to £400,000, a 1973 Ferrari Dino 246 GTS at £300,000 to £350,000, a 2000 Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM at £220,000 to £280,000, a 1912 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost at £175,000 to £225,000 and a 1957 AC Ace Bristol at £160,000 to £200,000.

Four things I will be watching

The Porsches first. A 1958 356A Speedster at £175,000 to £225,000 is in the same catalogue as a 1959 356A 1600 Coupé at £60,000 to £80,000. Ordinary 356s were one of the soft spots at Monterey last month, and a Speedster is not an ordinary 356, but nor is it a race car. If the Speedster clears its top estimate while the coupé struggles, buyers are still paying for rarity and very little else.

Second, the two DB4s side by side. Hagerty UK's Best of British index was sitting at its lowest reading since it launched in 2018 when we wrote our H1 market report, and 1960s road cars finished below their own price guide in California. A two-owner convertible and a Series III saloon in the same catalogue is about as clean a test of British sixties money as you will get.

Third, the Nissan and the Jordan. Both are wonderful things, and both need a paragraph of explaining before a buyer can decide what they are worth. At Silverstone in July the cars that needed a story told about them were the ones that went home. I would be pleased, and a little surprised, if both sell.

Fourth, the sell-through. Last year it was 55% on K500's count. With two sales' worth of consignments in one catalogue, I want to see comfortably over 60% before calling the merger a success.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the market

The Revival is only one end of a very long market. At WB & Sons in Newcastle in July, 171 cars went under the hammer and 68% sold for a total of £643,939, with only 9% selling below their low estimate. The top lot was a 1980 Ford Escort 1600 Sport at £35,970, 12% over its top estimate.

That is the part of the market most club members actually buy in, and it has been in far better health than the headlines. Brightwells in Herefordshire on the 16th, Mathewsons at Pickering and H&H at Kelham Hall on the 23rd, and Anglia at King's Lynn on the 26th will tell us more. The full list is on our auctions page.

Saturday, 10.30

The sale starts at 10.30 on Saturday 19 September at the Goodwood Motor Circuit, in the middle of a Revival weekend that runs from the 18th to the 20th. The details are on our Bonhams Goodwood Revival listing, and if you are going for the racing rather than the bidding, our Revival preview covers the weekend itself.

We will report back once the hammer has fallen. My guess, for what it is worth, is that the 1936 Aston and the two-owner convertible do well and at least one of the two oddities goes home. If I am wrong, you will read about it here first.