What first began as an elegant concours d'elegance on the golf club lawns of Pebble Beach has recently become a bonanza for collector car auctioneers. One-by-one they've muscled into the show until now it's not who brings the most beautiful or historically interesting automobile but who can boast of selling it for the most money. Which seems strange to me as I've always thoughts the boasting rights went to whoever paid the least for the most. That said, here are your 2009 Monterey best sellers:



Mecum Auction hit the jackpot in their inaugural Monterey appearance by raising $7.25 million for the championship-winning 1965 Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe CSX2601, the highest ever bid for an American car. Certainly its pedigree is impeccable: After competing at Daytona, Monza, Spa and Nurburgring, CSX2601 made history when it clinched the 1965 World Manufacturers Championship on July 4 in Reims, France.



Gooding & Company, which can claim to be the official auction house of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, sold a1958 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider at $2,750,000, as well as Ettore Bugatti's personal 1938 Bugatti Type 57C Special Coupe at $1,375,000. A 1953 Aston Martin DB 2/4 Drop Head Coupe went for $1,650,000.



RM Auctions, frequently the high-bid king, had to settle for a mere $2,530,000 as it sold an historic 1952 Jaguar C-Type. XKC-007 was one of the first C-Types delivered to North America. In 1952, a young Phil Hill - then just 25 and later America's first world's driving champion - drove the car at Elkhart Lake to claim the C-Type's first North American victory, before going on to achieve further success at Torrey Pines that same year. Phil Hill's son drove it on stage.

A note of Interest: All the top-sellers were sports-racing cars. What does that tell you?