Lots Of Great Cars Sold For Under $10,000 At Monterey Car Week 2026

Hello fellow have-nots and gutter snipes! Clear the coal soot from your screen-weary eyes and gaze upon the discounted fruits of another glorious Monterey Car Week! The caviar has been consumed and the Concours-worthy cars have all shuffled off to their temperature-controlled luxury garages far larger and nicer than any of my New York–based co-worker's apartments. So it goes. 

I love going to Car Week, because I am a firm believer that we low brow should rub shoulders with such fine people of social standing. It does both sides good to get those white, seersucker suit jackets scuffed by the dirty little grabby hands of Jalopnik. Remember, kids: don't be a class traitor, be a class infiltrator. 

And it is with this spirit that I bring to you the few affordable cars that sold at action at Monterey Car Week 2026. Yes, even in Monterey you can find used enthusiast cars that won't cost you every last penny in your bank account. Surprisingly, some can be found at the same car week as a 1935 Duesenberg SSJ Special Speedster once owned by Clark Gable. Will they cost you an arm and a leg in mechanic and insurance costs? Probably, but you will look cool the whole time you are going broke. 

This year the Car Week auctions hit a record of $762 million, with an average price of $887,399 across the nearly 900 sales, but the cheap cars sold for cheaper than ever. We've got 15 entires all under $10,000, while last year the ceiling was $15,000 just to get a good spread. Per usual, I skipped the memorabilia, expensive children's toys, bicycles and motorcycles in my reckoning. Four wheels good, two wheels bad, and all that.  

A new player entered the game this year in the form of Hagerty's Broad Arrow Auctions. The combination insurance company/publication/car auction site brought a bunch of very cool and interesting vehicles, most of which went for bigger bucks than this list allows. It offered a real wild mix of European cars with the occasional smattering of the company's home state's offerings. But as usual, Mecum brought most of the modest offerings to Pebble Beach this year. It is truly the people's auction house.

Our most expensive entry is also our gosh-darn cutest. I want to pinch the cheeks of every Nash Metropolitan I see, but one in sunshine yellow? Come on! I get the kind of cuteness aggression normally reserved for capybaras and land seals that take over small towns in New Zealand. These cars always remind me of the '90s show "Rocko's Modern Life" due to their cartoony cuteness. This sweet lil 3-speed manual sold with just 33,637 miles on the odometer. You also get a super cute teal-white two-tone interior and a color-matched engine bay perfect for those lazy Cars and Coffee afternoons. 

With less than 7,500 miles on the odometer this wine mom Chrysler Maserati TC is living, laughing and loving down the road in a Royal Cabernet exterior paint and a rich, velvety Merlot interior. Dry, full-bodied, and sophisticated, it's the kind of car that lights up a parking lot (or, sometimes, its own interior). Speaking of that interior, it looks like no one has even sat in this car. A pristine and clean machine, there are no pictures of the soft-top rolled back, which is not suspicious at all on a 37-year-old convertible listing. 

Everyone says they want a convertible packing a V8 until its time to pony up for a 28-year-old Mercedes-Benz. With only 51,125 miles on the clock, this car certainly seems like something your babushka only drove on Thursdays to see her oncologist in downtown Naples. The skin cancer eventually got her, but you can't blame the SL500 for that. Just think long and hard about the legendary engineering chops of Benz in the '90s before trusting your life to the "Automatic deployable roll-bar protection system."

Woah there, cool guy. With only 63,566 miles on it and a build year a few steps into this century, this SL550 convertible is a safer bet that you'll get a return on your investment. The interior is pretty bland, but so what? You've got the whole world at your fingertips with the retractable hard top. I've always loved these cars. They look like they're speeding by even when they're standing still. 

If I owned this I would put a bowler hat on my bulldog and drive around town saying stuff like "chippo!" and "I say! What! What!" I'm bringing it back, like MG was trying to bring back that classic roadster style in the 1950s. I guess nostalgia has always been a thing. My dad loves MGs and has owned several, so I don't mind that it drives like dog doo and probably has more electrical gremlins than mphs under the hood. And I bet its new owner won't car either. They're too busy having crumpets. The wheels are great and the butter cream paint with the dark green leather seat is a winning combo. 

An awful lot of low-mileage convertibles from almost 30 years ago are starting to enter the chat. Hmm I wonders if that portends anything. Anyway, this yellow crotch-enhancer sold for $8,800 with just 54,054 miles on the clock. C4 Corvettes are usually put somewhere near the bottom of the list when it comes to ranking 'Vette generations. If you were waiting for a "but" there, I'm sorry to disappoint you. It would absolutely eat at Radwood, though.

A V12 convertible with only 21,775 miles on it? Baby we've hit the jackpot. I mean sure, this thing will need three weeks at an Incredibly Expensive Garage if you so much as breath on it wrong, but that's the cost of doing business with class. The pale blue exterior on pale blue interior is like a beautiful siren song for the classic car buyer, and nothing bad ever happened to people who listened to those, right?  

I have nothing silly to say. I'd have an unhealthy relationship with this car. We'd have so much fun right up until we didn't. Break downs would ensure on both sides. I love this car and wish it were mine.

This custom build is certainly... something. The interior looks fairly original to the 1951 Studebaker hidden within. With only 81,378 miles, butts haven't spent enough time in those seats to wear them out. If you want to look like a Batman villain who steals color, this is for you.  

Speaking of cars driven by cartoon villains... With less than 5,000 miles, this Panther Lima is an interesting choice. Underneath that custom fiberglass body work is a Vauxhall Viva, which explains the left-hand drive. Less than 900 were ever built, according to Bring A Trailer, making this an excellent example of how money can indeed buy taste. The quality of that taste may vary and be affected by drugs. The turbocharged 2.3 liter inline-4 engine will certainly scoot this wacky roadster along, but that's only if you're willing to be seen driving it. 

The early '00s tried out retro in the worst way, and I say that as a lifelong Thunderbird fan. I shouldn't hate too much on a big 3.9-liter V8 engine, but this design was not for me. It's so busy, and that's without even having fins. This one has seen some use at 127,787 miles. Someone really loved this car and took good enough care of it to go up for auction at Pebble Beach even after that many miles. It may not be for me, but it certainly is for someone. Hopefully the new owner loves it as much as the last one did. 

Our lone entry from Hagerty's Broad Arrow Auctions is this gorgeous clayscale 1973 Citroën GS Birotor. This one has some pedigree, coming from the Mullin Automotive Museum with just 1,740 km on the dial (that's just a tick over 1,080 miles). It's also really weird. I had to look up just what the hell this was, and it's got a Wankel engine! Shut up! Everyone in the comments can go ahead and flame me for not knowing this before today in the comments, but finding out this information sent me into a two-hour information hole. Fewer than 900 of these cars were made. It's amazing someone out there now owns such a classy vehicle, a piece of history for not a lot of money.

This Ford Model A shows 18,280 miles on the odometer, which has to be the lowest age-to-mileage ratio on this list. It's probably not right — who knows what this car has gone through in the last 98 years, after all. It comes with Ford's trusty three-speed manual transmission. Ford would sell millions of these bad boys and, eventually, would expand to nine different body styles, from luxury coupes to commercial vehicles, including the pickup you see here. This was the generation before Ford's infamous flathead V8 engine would take America's roads by storm, but the A is the connective tissue between early motoring and real powerful vehicles for the masses. 

And we have another probably good life choice in the form of another old Mercedes convertible. It's also the highest-mileage vehicle on this list at very nearly 150,000 miles on the clock, buuuut, with a complete engine and transmission rebuild at 137,600 miles in 2002, it's practically like a brand-new Mercedes. I mean, just look at it. The interior? Showroom fresh. It even comes with its original owners manual, warranty card and maintenance booklet. Someone drove this car, but someone also loved this car and took damn fine care of it. You can't put a price on that. Or, I guess you can. It's $5,000. 

3,500 smackers for a fairly cute Radwood era convertible? I mean, sure it's silver on black interior isn't anything to write home about. Neither is its 2.0-liter inline-4 engine. And over 100,000 miles on an Alfa Romeo isn't a great sign. But it's a manual convertible with a hard top. You could reliably drive this car for weeks, heck, maybe even a month or two. Isn't that worth the $3,500?