Gooding Christie's 2025 Exceeds Expectations
Gooding Christie’s has just wrapped its strongest year ever, and for serious collectors the 2025 numbers read like a market barometer on steroids. With over $234 million in auction sales across four live and online events, revenue climbed 14% year over year in the firm’s first full season under the Christie’s name. Along the way, the house notched a 96% sell-through rate, 906 sold lots, and 52 results over the $1 million mark, underscoring deep demand at the top of the market.
At the sharp end was a car that instantly joins modern auction folklore: the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider Competizione that crossed the Pebble Beach block at $25,305,000. Beyond being the most valuable lot of the year, it is now both a world record for the California Spider model and the most expensive car ever sold by Gooding Christie’s, eclipsing the ex-Gary Cooper Duesenberg SSJ that set the company’s previous high in 2018. Ferrari dominated the upper echelons overall, with a 1955 375 MM Berlinetta bringing $9,465,000 at Amelia Island and a string of multi-million-dollar 250 and 365 series cars reshaping reference points for Maranello’s mid-century icons.
Yet 2025 was not only about blue-chip Ferraris. The Stan Lucas Collection Auction in Long Beach became a landmark moment for prewar and brass-era machinery, led by the 1911 Oldsmobile Limited Series 27 Seven-Passenger Touring at $5,065,000, a new marque record and a price that more than doubled its high estimate. That single-day sale also delivered fresh world records for Doble, Mercer, Stevens-Duryea, Stutz, and Crane-Simplex, signaling renewed respect for early American and European pioneers as collectors look beyond the usual postwar halo cars.
Modern exotics and specialist marques had their turn in the spotlight as well. At Amelia Island, the 1989 RUF CTR “Yellowbird” set a new record for the RUF name at $6,055,000, nearly tripling the previous high and confirming deep global appetite for period tuner legends and analog performance cars. Follow-up results for the 2021 RUF CTR Anniversary and 1997 CTR2 at $3,140,000 and $2,645,000 respectively established new benchmarks across the CTR lineage, while model records for the Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Competizione, Dino 246 GTS, and others rounded out a year full of reference-setting prices.
2025 also laid the groundwork for a very exciting 2026. Gooding Christie’s has secured a multi-year role as official auction house of Rétromobile Paris and the new Rétromobile New York, with its first Paris sale scheduled for 29 January 2026 and the New York debut slated for November 2026 at the Javits Center. Early star consignments include an early-production 1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta in Rosso Rubino Chiaro, the Cherrett Collection of Alfa Romeo 6Cs, and a covered-headlight 1958 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider – exactly the kind of metal that turns previews into destination events for serious buyers.
For collectors, the signal from 2025 is clear: well-documented, best-of-breed cars – from brass-era tourers to modern-era icons – are commanding fierce bidding, and carefully curated single-owner collections are being richly rewarded. With Amelia Island, Pebble Beach, Rétromobile Paris, and Rétromobile New York already on the horizon, Gooding Christie’s is positioning 2026 as another year where record-setting results could reset expectations across multiple eras and segments of the market.