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The last weekend of June and Goodwood Festival of Speed is here.  Not that I had planned to go, but a friend of mine text me a week before to say he had a spare ticket for Friday 24th June, and would I be interested. Bears and woods spring to mind…

Now I haven’t been to Goodwood Festival of Speed in quite some time, so the opportunity to break out the camera, without having to work and just wander around taking pictures of the cars I like was an opportunity not to be missed…

Singer has just released their Turbo study, and along with most Porsche fans, I have wanted to get a close look at their new vehicle, but more on that later.

After a hectic journey down, lots of traffic, not helped by a rail strike, I arrived just about on time after a 05:30hrs start to the day. Clearing security (car park M), we came across the Jaguar F types drifting on a secure piece of track.  It would have been rude not to poke our noses in and have a look, there is a video just below.

It was early so after a quick bacon and egg bap for breakfast courtesy of the in-show catering, we wandered past the BMW stand knowing that with would be pretty much packed even at this time of the morning with visitors wanting to put eyes on the new M3 Touring.

BMW celebrates 50 years of their highly sort after M series of cars, and what better way to celebrate it than at one of the world’s most prestigious motoring events.

Walking towards the hill climb and past the Bugatti stand, we were greeted by the Red Bull Lexus absolutely haring up the track with its rear tyres alight.  The sound on this machine was awesome and with its green exposed carbon fibre it looks as mean as it sounded.

After watching a few more runs by various cars going up the hill we decided to hit the pit area. Crossing the Goodwood bridge that you see in all the pictures you could hear, feel, taste, and smell the cars as they passed at speed underneath giving all of your senses a first-hand experience.

ASSEMBLY & PADDOCK:

The pit area is fantastic to be fair… Such an array of different machinery to be observed, sometimes allowed to touch these icons of the sport, and there are more than enough people within the pit area to answer any questions you may have.  One thing you do find in the pit area is the checking of engines before going on the hill climb, which obviously means starting them and reviving them.  At times we had to come away from the areas because we would be choking on the fumes of some of these beasts.

NEXT:
So now that we had filled our eyes at the pits area from vintage track racers, new F1 racing cars, drift cars, and just about everything noisy smelly, and fast, it was time to grab a coffee soak in the atmosphere and then have a wander around the car park (Performance Parking West).

There were a lot of lovely machines parked in this area. A collection of cars belonged to the YouTuber Tim Burton - professionally as Shmee150 (you can tell by the number plates). Seen were his AMG Black series, Aston Martin GT8, Ford GT & AMG GT Black Series.

A few other cars I spotted while in the area… a VERY clean Lamborghini Gallardo in black with silver alloys and it just looked fresh and quite understated. I found a rather lovely Porsche GT3 in red, a load of McLarens in various colours, many more Porsches, a fair few Ferraris, and just countless lovely pieces of machinery. One thing you can say about Goodwood Festival of Speed is the amount of expensive cars and opulence on show for the public to come and view is staggering.

McLAREN HOUSE:

After our coffee break and a sit down we then headed towards Goodwood house, but first, it was time to have a look at the McLaren’s and to have a look at the Artura. As with a lot of the high-end motors they are on display stands where there is no chance of getting close to it for viewing or obtaining close-up, high-end pictures of details.

GOODWOOD HOUSE:

Wandering around the side of Goodwood house and then coming into sight is the main sculpture. The sculpture pays homage to five decades of the division and showcases some of its most iconic models of BMW’s M class.

Frank van Meel, CEO of BMW M said: “As BMW M, we feel honoured to play a very special role at this year's Festival of Speed. For our 50th anniversary, we couldn't imagine a better place to celebrate our products with fans of the brand. I am particularly looking forward to unveiling a certain vehicle to the world’s public for the first time - a vehicle we have been waiting a long time for”.

The Duke of Richmond said: “We are delighted to be celebrating 50 years of BMW’s hugely successful Motorsport division at this year’s Festival of Speed, and it is especially fitting as we prepare to honour ‘The Innovators - Masterminds of Motorsport’. BMW M’s success can of course be attributed to half a century of innovation and we look forward to honouring the marque’s past, present and future achievements at Goodwood in June.”

All the vehicles that are on display on the sculpture are genuine vehicles (these are not fibre-glass models) although before being displayed on the plinth all of their fluids were drained and the engines have been removed.

You’ll be able to get a first look at BMW’s upcoming M Hybrid V8 LMDh endurance racer. This is the very first time it’s been shown in the flesh and although it’s upside down you can get a good look at the celebratory ‘50 years of M’ camouflage. It is accompanied by the glorious V12 LMR, the aforementioned 3.0 CSL, an M1 Procar, and Jörg Müller’s old 3 Series WTCC racer.

A little bit of history about the Sculpture - It has been in place in front of The Earl of March’s house since 1997 and was designed by artist and designer Gerry Judah.

CARTIER STYLE ET LUXE:

Next, we visited the “Cartier Style et Luxe” area. We were greeted by a gaggle of McLaren F1’s from the XP4 experimental car to Rowan Atkinson F1 which was unfortunately in an accident. These cars do not get written off and the insurance company paid out over £900’000 to have his car put back on the road.

Being spoilt with so many stunning examples we then ventured further down in the area to be greeted by a stunning Ferrari F40, F50, an Enzo, La Ferrari, and a 288 GTO to mention but a few…

Singer Vehicle Design really shouldn’t need any introduction if you have even the slightest interest in cars. Their new release to the public is the 911 Turbo or as they call it the Singer Turbo Study. I have been itching to see this car in the flesh since it was announced and I have no shame in saying I am an absolute fanboy. YouTube has a lot to answer for in keeping me locked in and going down many rabbit holes with anything slightly “backdated” or “reimagined”.

The stand was swamped by people and Photographers, and it was hard to get anywhere near the car. It wasn’t placed on the stand as it had been destined for the hill climb, so space around the car to get pictures was difficult, to say the least.

CATHEDRAL PADDOCK:

We wandered down to Cathedral Paddock to check out the endurance and Rally cars. There were all sorts there from the Redbull Dakar Rally pickup trucks, to Peugeot 3008 Decar Rally Cars, Ford group B Rally car RS 1700T, RS200, Metro 6R4’s, Citron Zara , Citrion ZX Dacar, Subaru impretsa, etc.

START LINE:

Before going to grab some food we decided that the next destination would be the start line. As you can imagine it wasn’t too long before we were getting covered in tyre smoke, breathing in the noxious fumes, and having our ears battered by the sound of screaming 4 cylinders units, flat 6s, V6’s, V8’s, V10’s (I do love a sound of a Lamborghini on full chat), V12’s and V16’s. The EV’s were impressive with their speed but the ones we saw unfortunately lacked any drama.

Although saying that (and I have to eat my own words here) McMurtry Automotive Speirling fan car broke both official and unofficial hillclimb records on Sunday driven by Ex-Formula 1 and IndyCar driver Max Chilton

Officially, the history books had Nick Heidfeld down as the true record holder courtesy of his famous 1999 run in the McLaren MP4/13 F1 machine that buzzed the line at 41.6s.

Unofficially, however, Romain Dumas had been the fastest driver up the famous 1.1-mile route aboard the Pikes Peak-winning Volkswagen ID.R - he eventually posted a 39.9s effort. However, Dumas’ run in the ID.R, which was tuned specifically for Goodwood, was set in the Saturday qualifying session and not in the officially recognised Sunday shootout climax.

Regardless, Chilton has surpassed both benchmarks thanks to a remarkable and definitive 39.08s charge in the astonishing McMurtry, which instantly deploys 2000kg of downforce from a fan.

Watch the video below courtesy of Goodwood Road & Racing

This beautiful Singer was on the hill climb and it just sounded amazing going through the gears up the hill. The car sounds better and better and as the noise reverberated off the wall at the top of the hill… no words can describe how good it sounded.

You may be wondering what racing car drivers were at Goodwood Festival of Speed this year? Follow the link for an article by Ben Miles who breaks down the drivers by category and gives a bit of an insight into who the drivers are. LINK

Food was next… We had walked and talked, gasped in amazement at the fantasicle machines on display, but the primal urge for a burger and chips with a nice pint of larger was getting stronger by the moment. Refreshed and somewhat lighter of a few guinea’s it was time to go soak up what was on offer with the exhibitors, then we visited the Electric Avenue, FOS Future Labs, and taking in a what is the future and Electric.

One car company that did catch my eye was the Polestar concept cars. The Polestar O2 is described as “taking the design language established with Polestar Precept further, creating a new premium performance paradigm as an all-electric roadster. A unique two-door convertible concept that merges art with technology. Remove the roof to experience pure performance, without the noise”.

Having our final wander around the festival I came across some Motorsport artwork courtesy of the fantastic Paul Oz. I’d love an original art piece but as with everything Goodwood, the price tag was just a little out of reach…

So with the Festival of Speed done… Almost, it would have been rude not to pop into the Porsche stand on the way out… But now I was truly shattered, the weather had been great, the organisers had thrilled us and it was time to take the next part of the day in my stride by heading home with a camera full of pictures, a belly full of food but most of all memories that I will cherish until the same time next year.

Thank you all for coming and reading my blog and looking at my pictures.

Take care…

Scott.