Monterey Car Week 2026 lands in the second week of August, and the schedule is already tightening. The events that matter either sell out or quietly close their guest lists, and by the last week of July, the good decisions have mostly been made. If you are still building your week, three of them deserve your attention right now. One is a drive, one is an evening you cannot buy your way into on the day, and one is one of the largest gatherings of Italian machinery on the planet.
(Featured Image by Nic Coury)
Rally to Monterey Car Week, August 10 to 12
Most people arrive in Monterey. A smaller group drives there, and the difference in how the week feels is not subtle.
Luxury Rally Club runs its Rally to Monterey Car Week from Los Angeles to Monterey across three days, August 10 through 12, landing you on the Peninsula before the crowds thicken and the traffic on Highway 1 turns into a parking lot with a view. LRC has been doing this at a level that is hard to overstate. Past runs have included a police-escorted crossing of Los Angeles to Jay Leno's garage and a full buyout of The French Laundry for a private dinner, which tells you roughly where the bar sits.
The rally is by invitation, and the RSVP form is the way in. If you have been thinking about it, submit now rather than in three weeks.
The Preserve Concours & Cocktails, August 13
This is the one I would protect on the calendar.
For one evening each year, the gates of the Santa Lucia Preserve open, and 20,000 private acres of Carmel Valley hills become the setting for a garden party with a concours lawn attached. Now in its eighth year, presented by Luxury Rally Club, it remains the rare Car Week evening where the cars are the starting point rather than the whole show.
A few things worth knowing. It is a driving event, not a spectator one, which means you bring your own car and take a place on the lawn, and all display vehicles go through approval first. The food is treated with the same seriousness as the machinery, with a roster of renowned chefs and an open bar of high-end wine and spirits behind a claim to the single best meal served anywhere during Car Week.
Tickets are $850 per person, all-inclusive, and attendance is by invitation.
Concorso Italiano, August 15, Plus The Paddock the Night Before
Forty-one years in, Concorso Italiano is still the Saturday that Italian car people organize their entire week around.
It runs from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 15, on the Bayonet Black Horse Golf Course above Monterey Bay, and the range is what keeps it interesting. Cars, motorcycles, motorbikes, scooters, four decades of Italian design in one field, with a Global Exotics section set aside for notable machinery from everywhere else. General admission is $250 plus fees. Children 13 and under get in free with a paying adult, which makes it one of the few genuinely family-friendly tickets of the week.
Come up a day early for The Paddock Monterey on Friday, August 14, from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Second year running, and the premise is refreshingly open: any interesting car, truck, or motorcycle, any country, any model year. Classics parked near new metal, food trucks, a VIP Club option, and none of the formality of the concours lawns. Admission is $100 plus fees.
Run them together and the week has a shape. You drive up from Los Angeles rather than flying into the noise. You spend Thursday evening on private land that almost nobody sees the rest of the year. You end the week on a field of Italian cars with a paddock party the night before.
