For ten days in August, the Peninsula becomes the center of the car world. Monterey Car Week 2026 runs August 7 to 16, and the schedule is dense enough that locals plan their week around the road closures as much as the cars themselves.
The spine of it runs like this. The Pre-Reunion and Corkscrew Hillclimb open things at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on August 8 and 9, a lower-key warmup that regulars swear by. The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion follows from the 12th through the 15th, filling the same track with historic race cars driven in anger rather than parked on a lawn. Thursday the 13th brings the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance, when the Concours field takes to public roads.
Friday the 14th belongs to The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering at Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley, the most exclusive ticket of the week, with capped attendance and manufacturer reveals. The whole thing closes Sunday the 16th with the 75th Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on the 18th fairway, the event the rest of the week orbits. Around those anchors sit Concorso Italiano, Motorlux, Legends of the Autobahn, and the auction houses that make Monterey the biggest collector-car marketplace on earth.
Some of it you buy a ticket for months out. Some of it you just show up for, coffee in hand, and watch a few hundred million dollars of machinery idle down the road. Both are the point. Our full day-by-day Car Week calendar tracks it all as schedules firm up.
Monterey Current is the Peninsula’s local edit — events, food, sport, arts, and what’s opening and closing, covered by people who live here and pay attention. Browse the events calendar, read more Events, and follow along on Instagram and Bluesky.
