British racing driver Roy Salvadori is quoted as saying ”Give me Goodwood on a summer’s day, and you can forget the rest of the world”, and I think I know what he meant, having spent two marvellous days at this year’s Goodwood Revival meeting.
Goodwood is as much a feeling as it is an event – a warm bath of nostalgia, a recreation and celebration of decades gone by. At the same time, it combines elements of both old and new – old in the sense that the cars and the clothes and the fashions are from the past, new with the high-tech screens, a Goodwood app and an increasing emphasis on sustainability – keeping classics on the road and track, wearing vintage fashions.
The first Goodwood Revival was held in 1998, and in the almost quarter of a century since, it has become one of the biggest and best-loved historic motorsport festivals in the world. It attracts sell-out crowds – all three days were sold out this year – to watch some of the world’s most valuable historic racing cars being driven with little respect for their value, in some cases by drivers with wonderful competitive records, such as Henri Pescarolo, Jenson Button, Sir Jackie Stewart and Tom Kristensen among many others.
Sixteen races plus practice sessions are held over three days, against a background of spectators mostly in period dress, plus a sizeable retail village, catering, a fairground that includes a Wall of Death, and probably the world’s greatest classic car park – the Revival Car Show, which merits an article on its own, and will get one. It’s huge, far too big an event to comprehensively cover even in a week’s worth of articles, but I will try to give a flavour of my two days’ attendance on the Friday and Saturday over two features, this one focusing (mostly) on the race cars.
This year, of course, the event took place against a background of the death of Queen Elizabeth II just a few days before, and being an event that values and embodies tradition almost above all else, Goodwood naturally honoured her memory and life as appropriately as one might expect.
This was the first time I was able to attend for more than one day, which gave me a bit more time to get around to as many parts of the circuit and infield as possible in a more leisurely fashion than usual. I set off early on the Friday morning, giving my still unsold BMW 2002tiiLux a decent run out for the first time this year – it just feels wrong to leave it sitting in the garage while waiting for someone to make me a reasonable offer. It’s a 160-mile drive each way so by the time I rolled up to the Revival Car Show area on the Friday after taking 90 minutes to cover the last five miles, it was already pretty full – more on that separately.
On arrival I made my way to the Media Office, situated next to the aerodrome, to pick up my pass from Goodwood’s admirable press team and decided to head to the paddocks for the first time.
It makes little difference where one starts at Goodwood – it’s all interesting, sometimes spectacular, occasionally breath-taking. While the heart of the event lies in the racing, I’m not sure how much events on the track matter to most attendees. Yes, they like to soak up the glorious sight and sound of some marvellous historic racers being driven competitively, but I doubt the race results are of much consequence to anyone other than the drivers themselves; if you are interested, you can find them here.
Let’s begin with a look around the paddocks and special events…
It was impossible to escape the Prancing Horse at this year’s Revival (although why would you want to?) since the meeting was celebrating 75 years of possibly motoring and motorsport’s most famous marque, and there was an astonishing number of fabulous Ferrari’s around and on the circuit. It’s difficult to pick highlights – there were no fewer than five 250 GTO’s! – so below is just a selection of some of Maranello’s contributions to motor racing history. My personal favourites were the yellow 1965 250LM – stunning, and the immaculate recreation of Phil Hill’s 1961 156 – 1.5-litres V6 – “sharknose” F1 car.
It’s hard to conceive of such a delicate-looking machine being hurled around a race-track, yet the 156’s won 5 of 8 Grand Prix’s in 1961, taking Phil Hill to the Driver’s Championship and Ferrari to the Constructor’s title. Later versions raced over the next couple of years, but no originals survive after Enzo Ferrari ordered them to be scrapped in 1963, so the recreation was necessary, and it looks fantastic.
To coincide with the 60th anniversary of his first F1 world title, the life and times of Graham Hill, one of the UK’s most famous sons, were also celebrated over the weekend, both his time as an active and very successful racer – the only man to win the so-called Triple Crown of F1 World Championship, the Indy 500 and Le Mans – and as a team owner. There was a display and track parade of many of the cars Hill and his famous moustache drove to victories around the world, including a pair of Lotus Cosworth 49’s in Gold Leaf Team colours – I know smoking is a very unhealthy habit and one I thankfully never succumbed to, but the tobacco companies’ racing colours are among the best – think John Player Special Lotus or Marlboro McLaren…it was fantastic to see them stationary, even more so to see them in motion..
In terms of the actual racing, there were classes for Touring cars, GT cars, sports cars, Grand Prix cars, sports prototypes and more, all of them originally actively racing in the years between 1948, when motor-racing first took place at Goodwood and 1966, when competitive motorsport ended until the Revival of 1998.
Besides the Ferrari’s featured in the 75th anniversary event, there were also a number competing on the track, including a gaggle of 250GT SWB’s taking on E-Types, DB4’s and AC Cobra’s among others in the Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy,
Ferrari 246 Dino’s – the inspiration for the later road cars – were pitted against equally fabulous Maserati 250F’s and various Lotuses and Coopers for the Richmond & Gordon Trophies – I’ve always had a soft spot for the 250F, ever since having a model one – long lost – as a boy. Gorgeous – the Maser, not me, obviously.
One of the most beautiful of all Ferrari’s – to my eyes, at least – is the aforementioned 250LM, which was up against a pair of almost as gorgeous Porsche 904 GTS’s, more Cobra’s, a couple of Corvettes and even more E-types. Sights and sounds for sore eyes and ears.
Moving away from Maranello – not easy to do with so many representatives across several grids, I’ve always loved the slightly ungainly-looking Maserati Tipo 61, better known as the Birdcage due to is tubular space frame chassis, which competed against Jaguar D-types, Lister Jaguars and other sports cars that raced between 1955 and 1960. I loved watching these come hurtling through the chicane.
The St. Mary’s Trophy featured saloon cars from between 1960 and 1966, cars we all recognise, of course. A quartet of BMW 1800ti’s were among my favourites here, as well as Alfa Giulia Sprints, Lotus Cortina’s and Mini Coopers, all dwarfed by the mighty Ford Galaxie 500’s.
Two more personal favourites of mine – the 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder and 356 Speedster from the same year took to the track to mix it with Maserati A6GCS’s, various Tojeiro’s including this Tojeiro MG and a stunning blue 1955 OSCA-Alfa Romeo MT4. All of them sounded awesome as they accelerated down the pits straight.
The powerful sports prototypes of the mid-sixties entered in the Whitsun Trophy included the likes of McLaren-Chevrolet’s, Lola T70’s and of course Ford GT 40’s, brutal looking and sounding cars.
There was so much more – gorgeous Aston Martin DB3S’s ran in the Freddie March Memorial Trophy against the likes of Jaguar C-types, still more fabulous Ferrari’s and (yet) another of my favourites, the1955 Allard J2X. Everywhere you looked, there was something extraordinary to make you stop and stare.
While most of the weekend is taken up with expensive high-powered racing cars charging around the circuit, the Settrington Cup brings the pace down a touch. Inaugurated ten years ago, this is one of those events that helps make Goodwood special – a pedal car race over 247 yards of the pit straight, with dozens of boys and girls pedalling as fast as they can in miniature Austin J40 pedal cars to make their parents happy (cynical, me?). It’s colourful and fun and fits right in with the spirit of the weekend, even if there were a few tears along with the smiles.
In fact it is as much this spirit of fun as anything else that makes the Revival such a joyful experience. I loved the crashed UFO and “hunt the alien” set up, complete with police and military presence to keep people away and even a themed dance routine – all to mark another, absolutely nothing to do with motoring or motorsport anniversary, 75 years since the Roswell Incident.
Another major anniversary – the centenary of the Austin 7, the car that brought motoring within reach of the average British family – was also celebrated, with a track parade of scores of these tiny cars, in all their various guises as saloons, soft-tops, vans, single seater specials and more. The Austin 7 was a people’s car years before the VW Beetle, cheap and cheerful motoring, and very adaptable, and the owners of these endearing little cars clearly had a wonderful time.
I’ve just scratched the surface here, but hopefully you get an idea of what a special event this is. Next week, I’ll be taking a look at what is almost certainly the world’s greatest classic car park – The Revival Car Show – meanwhile here are more photographs to be going on with.
