Monterey Car Week 2026: California Becomes the World’s Largest Open-Air Museum

There is one week each year when a stretch of California coastline ceases to be simply one of the most captivating tourist destinations in the United States and transforms into the centre of the automotive world. The roads between Monterey, Carmel, Pebble Beach, and Pacific Grove become an open-air museum, where the rarest, most valuable, and most extraordinary automobiles in history return to doing what they were born to do: move. Monterey Car Week is not merely a succession of events but a world unto itself, where the impossible seems to become ordinary. Any car park might conceal a rare model, any road might become a stage, and cars seen until that moment only in history books appear suddenly before your eyes.

The week gets under way with the traditional Monterey Car Week Kickoff in downtown Monterey on 7 August, followed, between 8 and 9 August, by the first practice and qualifying sessions of the Monterey Pre-Reunion at Laguna Seca and by the spectacular Corkscrew Hillclimb – a race against the clock that brings its protagonists face to face with one of the most iconic stretches in world motorsport. From 12 to 15 August, the legendary California circuit will then serve as the stage for the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, where single-seaters, sports prototypes, GT cars, and touring cars of every era return to compete on track, delivering one of the most stirring spectacles of the entire Car Week.