For about ten days at the end of January, Scottsdale becomes the largest collector-car marketplace on earth. Hotel valets look like concours lawns. A Ferrari idles at the light on Scottsdale Road next to a landscaping truck, and nobody looks twice. You’ll hear engines you’ve only read about, see price tags you’ll repeat to people for years, and — if you do it wrong — spend a meaningful part of your vacation looking for a place to park.
Nobody planned any of this. In 1971 two local collectors named Tom Barrett and Russ Jackson held an auction, and over the next half century every other auction house, show, and rally piled onto the same dates. The cluster is now called Arizona Car Week. Here’s how we do it.
Know who’s actually in Scottsdale
The week’s map has churned for years, and half the guides online are out of date. As of now:
- Barrett-Jackson at WestWorld in North Scottsdale. The anchor, the volume sale, and the party. Nine days, well over a thousand cars, most sold at no reserve, all of it on live TV.
- Bonhams at the Westin Kierland. One sale day with previews before it, a curated docket of several dozen cars, and the most relaxed room of the week.
- The Arizona Concours d’Elegance on the Civic Center lawns in Old Town, one Sunday. A judged show: nothing is for sale; everything is worth seeing.
Across the city lines: RM Sotheby’s holds its sale at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, MAG Auctions is in Peoria, and Worldwide Auctioneers still calls itself “The Scottsdale Auction” from a site in Tempe. Russo and Steele and Gooding are gone. Dates and venues shift year to year, so confirm each one with the auction house before you book anything around it.
Barrett-Jackson: pick your day
The single most useful thing we can tell you: weekdays are for seeing cars, the final Friday and Saturday nights are for seeing money.
- Early week is family cars, entry-level classics, and the automobilia sale — gas pumps, neon signs, pedal cars. Thinner crowds, watchable prices, and room to actually walk the show floor.
- Tuesday through Thursday is where the serious buying happens and the quality climbs fast. This is our day.
- Friday and Saturday are primetime: headline cars, charity lots, and an arena at full roar. Great theater, terrible for looking at anything up close.
- The final Sunday is the wind-down, and quietly a decent day to watch bargains happen.
Weekday admission is usually cheaper than the weekend. Bidding requires separate registration with proof of funds, and nobody is going to accidentally sell you a Camaro for scratching your ear. Relax.
Where to stand
Most ticket-holders spend the day in the arena and the tents. The veterans walk the staging lanes behind the block, where cars queue before they cross: engines running, hoods up, owners chatty and nervous. It’s the best car show inside the car show.
At Bonhams, go to the preview, not just the sale. You get closer to the cars than any tent at WestWorld allows, and the specialists will actually talk to you. At the concours, go early. By late morning every car has a semicircle of people around it.
Getting there without losing a day
WestWorld sits off the Loop 101 in the Princess corridor, which is the same corner of town that hosts the WM Phoenix Open two weeks later and a heavy slice of the horse-show calendar. The rules:
- Rideshare or the event shuttles beat circling. The lots exist, but they sprawl.
- Come in from Hayden, not the 101 ramps, when the traffic is bad, which is always.
- Never park where your exit requires a left turn late on the final Saturday night. Veterans say this like a prayer.
- Split the week by geography. WestWorld and Kierland are the north end; the concours and dinner are Old Town. Don’t bounce between them twice in one day.
Our getting-around note has the rest of the road logic.
What to wear and bring
January is the coldest month of the year here, and visitors never believe it until 7:00 AM. Mornings in the 40s, afternoons near 70°F, and the arena gets cold again at night.
- Real walking shoes. You’ll cover miles of show floor without noticing.
- Layers you can carry. A jacket at the gate, a t-shirt by 2:00 PM, the jacket again for the evening session.
- Sunscreen and sunglasses. It’s winter. The sun hasn’t heard.
- A budget for food, or a plan to skip it. Inside is festival-grade and festival-priced.
Book everything by fall
Hotels near WestWorld and Kierland book out months ahead, and the week sits at the front edge of a high-season run that goes straight through February. Book rooms in the fall, and dinner reservations as soon as your dates are set. If Old Town restaurants matter more to you than a short drive to the auction, stay in Old Town and commute north.
For dinner, the steakhouses carry the week. Bourbon Steak at the Princess sits in the same corridor as WestWorld and books accordingly; in Old Town, anything with a white tablecloth fills with people discussing hammer prices.
Can’t do January?
Two consolation prizes. Barrett-Jackson now runs a smaller October sale at the same arena: a fraction of the crowd, 85°F instead of 65°F, and the same staging lanes with nobody in them. And the Goodguys Southwest Nationals fill WestWorld in November with thousands of hot rods whose owners sit in lawn chairs next to them and would love to tell you about the carburetor.
Our version of the week
A weekday at Barrett-Jackson for the spectacle, the Bonhams preview for the close-up, and the concours on Sunday for the calm — the same collectors who spent seven figures that week, standing on a lawn in the sun talking about cars. Skip the final Saturday night unless you want the party more than the machines. Then go home and start checking next year’s dates. Everyone does.