Collector car auction house Gooding and Company has entered into an agreement with Christie’s to be fully acquired, with the deal likely to close towards the end of 2024. Once it closes, Gooding and Company will be known as Gooding Christie’s, acting as the automotive department of the parent company.
It will come as a relief to those used to dealing with Gooding & Company that the current team is expected to remain largely intact and still based at its Santa Monica headquarters, with co-founder David Gooding remaining as company president, reporting to Christie’s CEO, Guillaume Cerutti.
David Gooding and wife Dawn Ahrens started Gooding & Company in 2003. David had served as managing director of the International Motor Sports department at Christie’s and as president of RM Auctions. The company held its inaugural sale at Pebble Beach in 2004 and is still the official auction house of Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance – a position that is expected to remain. It’s currently consigning for its next major sale in Amelia Island, Florida.
Gooding & Company has become known for selling some of the world’s most important cars, including the 1962 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California built for the New York International Auto Show and the 2024 Pebble Beach-winning 1934 Bugatti Type 59. It also occupies 14 positions in the top 50 collector car auction sales. The combination of David Gooding and British auctioneer Charlie Ross on the rostrum has been popular from the beginning, with Charlie’s ebullience and plummy English accent contrasting with David’s urbane style.
Christie’s has a rather longer history, having been founded in 1766. Now owned by Artémis, the holding company of the Pinault family, it has physical locations in 46 countries and flagship sales hubs in New York, London, Hong Kong, Paris and Geneva. It specialises in art, antiques and luxury objects but for many years it was well known for its collector car department, which opened in 1972 – many of the world’s current car auctioneers and dealers cut their teeth at Christie’s.
However, Christie’s closed its car department in 2007. This was a few months after an embarrassing sale at Rétromobile Paris, at which the star car, a 1937 Auto Union Type D race car, had to be withdrawn at the last minute following questions over its claimed history. The confusion was soon explained, due to legitimate period mixings of chassis and engines, but it was a damaging episode for the Christie’s car team. Having already lost ground to rivals RM Auctions, Bonhams and Coys at the time, Christie’s seemed to decide that it was better off out of the car market and withdrew completely.
Now, with the acquisition of Gooding & Company, it’s most certainly back. Gooding has just added to its team with New York-based Brit Rupert Banner (another former Christie’s employee) as well as American Lance Butler, most recently of SBX Cars. It was weakened recently by the loss of UK car specialists Joe Twyman and Harry Wassell, who moved to Broad Arrow. However, another new Gooding recruit, Ben Willis, will be leading the UK operation, which is currently centred around its sale at Concours of Elegance Hampton Court Palace.
There’s an intense rivalry between Christie’s and Sotheby’s, with the two vying for top spot year after year; in 2023 Sotheby’s sold a total of $7.9 billion in total sales compared to Christie’s $6.2 billion. The differences between the two, both of which were founded in the 1700s, are explained in depth in this article in The Collector.
Meanwhile, there will be obvious comparisons with RM Sotheby’s, which was formed when Sotheby’s acquired a 25% stake in RM Auctions in 2015. This enabled the already dominant RM to grow still further, to secure its place as the largest collector car auction house in the world, but it suffered two years ago with the loss of several key management and staff members to Hagerty’s Broad Arrow Auctions.
Guillaume Cerutti, Christie’s chief executive officer said of the sale: “Christie’s has long admired Gooding & Company and their way of doing business. The legacy that David Gooding and his team have built over the past two decades is well admired by collectors internationally and we could not be more honored to welcome them into the Christie’s family. We are confident that the combination of resources will provide many opportunities for significant global growth.”
David Gooding, co-founder and president of Gooding & Company commented: “When we founded Gooding & Company 21 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 and the Christie’s team to achieve the next evolution of the Gooding & Company brand.”
François-Henri Pinault, chairman of Groupe Artémis also commented, saying: “I am very pleased by the acquisition of Gooding & Company by Christie’s. The ambition and values of David Gooding, and his team, align perfectly with those of Christie’s. They also correspond with those of the other businesses in which the Pinault family has long been invested, in the fields of art and culture, luxury, and lifestyle. We are excited to support the development of Gooding & Company and explore new collaborations.”
