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At the events and shows of Monterey Car Week — the annual August gathering of auctions, lawn shows, and debuts on the California peninsula that culminates in the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance — money appears to be no object: seven-figure hypercars changing hands, classic-car auctions leaping to new records, and waiting lists stretching years into the future.

But talk to the executives who actually sell these cars, and a more nuanced picture emerges. Higher-end buyers are supporting the market, yet a split has opened within it. The CEOs themselves say a K-shaped economy — shorthand that gained currency in the pandemic-era rebound for a recovery in which one cohort's fortunes climb while another's stall — now exists even at the very top of the market, and only one arm of the K is going up.

Hagerty: liquidity events fuel a gold rush

McKeel Hagerty, CEO of collector-car insurer Hagerty (HGTY), sees the divide now. Asked whether a K-shaped economy exists in the collector-car world, he did not hesitate.

"Like the two upper levels of a K," he said. "When people are paying a lot of money for cars, it's because there was a big liquidity event."

Company sales, IPOs, and an overheated stock market are adding liquidity at the highest end, he noted, set against a backdrop of tariffs, high rates, and global conflict that "freaks people out." The result is a gold rush at the very top, largely indifferent to the anxiety in the lower rungs of even the modestly wealthy.

Hagerty — whose business spans insuring collector cars and tracking their values — has watched that gold rush compress time itself. "The number of $100 million car collections that have been built in a matter of months, rather than decades, is very different right now," he said.

Bentley: strong at the top, hesitation below

Frank-Steffen Walliser, CEO of Bentley (VWAGY), the Volkswagen Group's British ultra-luxury marque, sees the split plainly in his own order books.

"The top end is — if I say it's not a problem, it's true. It's good, very good business, proper demand, good customers," he said. "But the more regular customers, this is where we see the business is slow. People hesitate."

The reason, he argues, is that these cars are pure want, not need. "You buy a luxury product — a handbag, a watch, a car, a boat — it's all about self-rewarding," Walliser said. "But if your business numbers don't look like that, you say it's not necessary at all. You don't buy a Bentley because you need it. You buy a Bentley because you want it."

Aston Martin: the squeezed middle

No one drew the dividing line more sharply than Adrian Hallmark, CEO of Aston Martin (ARGGY) and, before joining the British sports-car maker in 2024, the head of Bentley — a career that has put both brands' order books in front of him. In his view, wealthy and lower-income groups are both, in a sense, insulated from the noise — it is the tier between them that is worried.

"People at the top end, it makes no difference. People at the bottom end, it makes no difference," he said. "It's those in the middle who are the most susceptible — and they buy the highest volume of cars, not the highest value of cars."

Hallmark reached for a line he attributes to LVMH's Bernard Arnault to explain the psychology: "Luxury consumption is merely an indicator of people's confidence in their future," he said. "If I think I'm going to be wealthier in three, five, 10 years than I am today, I'll do it. If I'm not sure, I'll think about it."

What he is seeing in most markets, he stressed, is "hang back, not withdrawal" hesitation among the middle — not among the buyers at the top, whose ranks he said are "logarithmically growing. And they're getting younger."

Bugatti: over-demand at the peak

At the absolute peak, the downturn simply does not register. Mate Rimac, the 38-year-old CEO of Bugatti — a brand that since 2021 has operated under Bugatti Rimac, the joint venture pairing Volkswagen Group's French marque with Rimac's Croatian electric-technology company — runs a company so far up the "K" that macroeconomics matter little, if at all.

"We have so much over-demand and so little supply that the demand is so much bigger than what we can serve," he said.

The arithmetic, as he frames it, draws on the industry's standard bar for an ultra-high-net-worth individual — generally $30 million or more in assets — and it is staggering: "There are around 300,000 ultra-high-net-worth individuals in the world, and we make 100 cars per year. We are serving less than 1% of the global ultra-net-worth population. If half of them did badly, there would still be more than enough customers for us."

McLaren: AI millionaires swell the buyer pool

Nick Collins, CEO of McLaren Automotive, sees the same expanding pool of well-heeled buyers — and a new source feeding it.

"The number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals around the world continues to grow quite rapidly, in every age group," he said. "You now see an explosion of AI-related millionaires — young individuals, in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and China."

Lamborghini: the most cautious voice

The optimism is not universal, and some caution persists among luxury brands. Lamborghini (VWAGY) CEO Stephan Winkelmann may have been the most sober of the group, though the Italian exotic automaker posted record revenue even as unit sales slipped, due to higher spending from its wealthiest clientele.

"It's very difficult in these times, because things are changing so fast," he said. "Nobody was expecting that there would be a war in the Middle East," an important market where "the volume dropped."

Add a weakened dollar and a Chinese market that "dropped dramatically," and even a brand with a yearlong waiting list is playing it cautious. "We have to be very conservative in the approach," Winkelmann said. "Only then can you maintain this scarcity and this lust of buying the Lamborghini."

A widening gap at the top

Put it all together, and a consensus emerges from Monterey Car Week: the very top of the market has never been more bullish on spending, the tier just below it is getting more nervous, and the gap between them is widening.

The K-shaped economy is bifurcating right at the top, and the luxury auto brands will do what it takes — one-off cars, limited-edition specials, even manual transmissions — to cater to shoppers' expensive whims. The signals the executives themselves point to are the classic ones in this market: order books at Bentley's Crewe headquarters, waiting lists at Lamborghini's Sant'Agata Bolognese base, auction tallies at Monterey — and whether the middle's "hang back" ever hardens into the withdrawal Hallmark insists it has not.

Pras Subramanian is Lead Auto Reporter for Yahoo Finance.