Vehicle appraisals in Newport Beach, CA

Real talk about appraising cars in Newport Beach

We have worked in the Orange County car business for more than 25 years, and Newport Beach is one of the most demanding car markets in the country. A garage in Big Canyon or on Linda Isle can hold a Porsche collection, a Mercedes SL, and a Bentley, and each car has its own story, options, and paperwork. A generic online "what's my car worth" tool can't price that. We can, because we have bought, sold, managed, and appraised these cars here for decades.

The dealer rows that built this market

Newport Beach was a car town long before it was a luxury market. Here is the dealer story as we know it and as we've heard it, in roughly the order it happened. Dates are approximate. It matters to an appraisal because cars sold new or serviced by these stores often carry original paperwork, service records, and dealer history that support their value.

• Theodore Robins Ford (1921–1966). Newport's original auto dealer. It started as a small shop on the Balboa Peninsula in 1921 for $15 a month, moved to a big lot at 3100 Pacific Coast Highway in 1955, and moved on to Costa Mesa in 1966.
• Cotton Goff Volkswagen, GMC, and Pontiac. Cotton Goff was selling Volkswagens on West Coast Highway by 1959, among the first to bring the Beetle to the Orange County coast. Later the Cotton Goff name sold GMC trucks and Pontiacs, including Trans Ams, a good fit for locals towing boats out of the harbor.
• Otto Culbertson Chevrolet, Williams Chevrolet, and Connell Chevrolet. Otto Culbertson ran a highly visible Chevrolet dealership at the corner of 3rd Street and Pacific Coast Highway, later bought out and renamed Williams Chevrolet. Connell Chevrolet, today one of Orange County's longest-running family-owned dealerships, also began on Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach in the late 1950s, then moved inland to its current home on Harbor Boulevard in Costa Mesa in 1963.
• Chick Iverson Motors. In the early 1960s Chick Iverson built a Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, and Chevrolet store on West Coast Highway. It was one of the first dealers to bring the Volkswagen Beetle, or Bug as most people call it, to California, and to bring the Porsche brand to Orange County. John Wayne, who lived across the harbor, was a regular and a close friend, and the story goes that Iverson had the roof raised on Wayne's VW wagon so he could drive in his cowboy hat. A vintage photo shows Wayne at the showroom. When Iverson added Chevrolet to his Volkswagen and Porsche lineup in the 1960s and 70s, he picked up the local Chevy business left by the departing early dealers, and put everyday American cars and imported European luxury under one roof.
• Roy Carver Pontiac, Rolls-Royce, and Sterling BMW (1955–today). Roy Carver opened a Pontiac dealership in Newport Beach in 1955 and added Rolls-Royce in 1960. By the 1970s it had grown into one of the largest Rolls-Royce dealerships in the world outside London. In 1970 Carver added BMW, making it Orange County's first BMW store, a year before Crevier BMW opened in 1971. In 1984 John Belanger bought the dealership and renamed it Sterling Rolls-Royce & BMW. In 1988 Belanger split the franchises and sold the Rolls-Royce portion to Steven Bren, son of billionaire developer Donald Bren. In 1997 the remaining BMW franchise moved to its current location at 3000 West Coast Highway, where it operates today as Sterling BMW.
• Bob Hall's Newport Imports. The 1960s coastal hub for Jaguar, Triumph, MG, and Austin-Healey sports cars.
• Lou Reed Chrysler-Plymouth and Johnson & Son Lincoln-Mercury. Chrysler and Plymouth station wagons and muscle cars from Lou Reed, and big Lincolns and Mercurys from Johnson & Son, later John McGraw, for Newport's marina crowd in the 1960s and 70s.
• Carman Jeep. A small 1970s lot selling CJ-5 and CJ-7 Jeeps for towing boats and driving on the sand.
• Jim Slemons Imports and Fletcher Jones Motorcars. Slemons ran Newport's high-volume Mercedes-Benz store on Quail Street in the 1970s and 80s. In 1991 Ted Jones, son of Fletcher Jones Sr., who started the family business in 1946 with $1,200 and a used-car lot, bought it and rebuilt it as Fletcher Jones Motorcars. The City of Newport Beach reviewed its move to 3300 Jamboree Road in 1995, and it has been named the nation's top Mercedes-Benz dealer for more than two decades.
• Newport Beach Porsche and Newport Beach Bentley. The old Iverson store passed to the Bren family around 1989–90, to another local owner in the mid-1990s, and to AutoNation around 1997–98. It was Newport Auto Center, selling Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Porsche, Audi, and Chevrolet, and after AutoNation took over the Rolls-Royce side was sold off to Newport European Motorcars. Porsche later required the name change, and today it is Newport Beach Porsche and Newport Beach Bentley at 445 East Coast Highway, where Porsche reopened a 60,000-square-foot building in September 2025.

Sources: Craft & Tailored on Chick Iverson, AutoNation on Porsche Newport Beach, The Fletcher Jones Story, Locale Magazine, City of Newport Beach project record, Sterling BMW, Cotton Goff archive, Chick Iverson archive. Other details are as we know them or as we have heard them.

Cars & Coffee at Crystal Cove

If you were into cars in the early 2000s, you remember Cars & Coffee at Crystal Cove, on Pacific Coast Highway between Newport Beach and Laguna. Two enthusiasts started it in 2003. On a Saturday morning at 7 a.m. you could find a McLaren F1 prototype, a Porsche Carrera GT, a Saleen S7, and a Porsche 959. Neighbors in Newport Coast eventually complained about the exhaust noise, and it ended on October 14, 2006. It moved on to Irvine, but it did not stay away. Cars & Coffee has quietly returned to its original spot at Crystal Cove, and it is still going. That tells you what kind of car town this is.

Source for the original history: Driving Line, "Cars & Coffee: The Real Beginnings at Crystal Cove". City history: Visit Newport Beach.

Recent Newport Beach work

These are the kinds of high-end luxury cars we handle here every year, with client details kept private:

• Harbor Ridge. Bentley Continental Speed valued for a client.
• Cameo Shores. A family Porsche collection, appraised car by car.
• Lido Isle. Mercedes-Benz SL for a client.
• Back Bay. BMW M3 for a client.
• Pelican Hill. A six-car estate appraised for the family.

Where we work

We appraise cars across all of Newport Beach: the Pacific Coast Highway corridor, Corona del Mar including Cameo Shores, Spyglass, and Big Canyon, Newport Coast and Pelican Hill, The Wedge and the Balboa Peninsula, Balboa Island, Lido Isle and Lido Village, Linda Isle, Harbor Island, Harbor Ridge, the Port Streets, East Bluff, Dover Shores, Castaways, Kings Road, Bayshore, and the Back Bay, plus Newport Center and Fashion Island. On-Site appraisals come to your garage, and virtual appraisals work from anywhere.

What that means for your appraisal

• Luxury and performance cars. Two cars of the same model can sit thousands of dollars apart. We value your VIN: build sheet and options, paint, mileage, service history, ownership chain, and any paintwork or accident history.
• Collector and classic. Originality, matching numbers, documentation, and the quality of any restoration drive value. A binder of records can be worth more than a fresh paint job.
• Estates and trusts. Many Newport Beach families hold vehicles in a trust. A date-of-death fair market value documents the asset for the trustee and CPA, and can support the tax basis of an inherited vehicle.
• Insurance. Specialty insurers often want a current independent value to set an agreed value. Requirements differ by company, so ask yours what it will accept.

Why Newport Beach owners call us

• We know this market. More than 25 years working Orange County cars, ASCAA-certified, and active in the Porsche Club of America, a Ferrari club, and the Petersen Automotive Museum's CF200.
• We have bought and sold these cars. Our lead appraiser ran a boutique dealership for nine years buying and selling classic, collector, and luxury cars from $20,000 to $1,000,000, from Porsche and Bentley to Mercedes-Benz and BMW, so we know how these cars trade, not just how they are listed.
• Independent by design. We have no financial interest in any dealer, lender, insurer, or manufacturer, and our fee never depends on the number we conclude.
• Documented, not guessed. Every report cites sold comparables with source, date, and status, and states its assumptions plainly.