Christie’s buys Gooding & Company

British fine art auction house Christie’s, now in the hands of the French multi-billionaire Pinault family under its Groupe Artémis holding company, has bought Californian-based classic car auctioneers Gooding & Company. The deal, to be completed by the end of 2024, will see high-profile sales in 2025 held under a joint name – still to be decided.

Husband-and-wife team David Gooding and Dawn Ahrens started their eponymous business in 2003. Previously, in an 11-year career with Christie’s, David Gooding had served as managing director of the company’s International Motor Car Department. He also worked a three-year spell as president of RM Auctions. Gooding & Company is the official partner of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

In a press announcement on 12 September 2024, David Gooding commented: “When we founded Gooding & Company twenty-one years ago, we built it on the pillars of integrity, quality, and passion within the collector car market.

“I am proud of our tremendous growth within this industry, and I am confident that our acquisition by Christie's is the next step in our continued development as a global market leader in this space. I look forward to working with Guillaume [Cerutti, Christie’s CEO] and the Christie’s team to achieve the next evolution of the Gooding & Company brand.”

The first scheduled auction to be held under the new set-up is likely to be at Amelia Island, Florida, in March 2025. David Gooding confirmed to K500 the company would be unlikely to join arch-rival RM Sotheby’s at its new Florida event, ModaMiami, to be held a week earlier. Once a regular at Scottsdale in Arizona, Gooding has not held a live sale there since 2019, before the pandemic.

The development is an overdue move in an increasingly overcrowded world of classic car auctions. Simon thinks it’s good news, and the fact that high-profile names Christie’s and luxury experts the Pinault family want to be involved in top-tier classic cars can only be good for the market. RM’s association with Sotheby’s has brought significant rewards, opening doors often closed to a mere ‘classic car auction house’. Witness the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR sale, the Ferrari 330 LM/250 GTO auction in New York and the forthcoming Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum event.

 “What took them so long?!” says Simon. “David started at Christie’s in the days when they led the market, largely thanks to Robert Brooks putting them in the No.1 spot with the standard-setting (and record-breaking) sale of the Bugatti Royale at the Albert Hall in 1987, a record which stood for many years.

“Christie’s faded gradually after Robert left to set up Brooks in 1989, but it remained a strong brand in the classic car sphere until it exited in 2007. Sotheby’s have had it largely to themselves in recent years thanks to the RM tie-up, and it was inevitable that wouldn’t be lost on Christie’s. Building a department from scratch could take forever, so which car auction company could they buy which best aligned with their values and image? Gooding is the perfect match and Christie’s financial firepower, and network, should help take the company forward beyond its limitations as a family concern.”

Admirers of the peerless British auctioneer Charlie Ross (pictured, top, with David Gooding at Amelia Island earlier this year) can be reassured the talismanic man with the gavel will be a feature of future Gooding Christie’s – or Christie’s Gooding… – auctions to come.

Photo by Marcelo Murillo for K500