2013 Goodwood Festival of Speed report
Months out from the July 11 - 14 event, the expectation was that the 20th Anniversary Goodwood Festival of Speed would be a big one. Those predictions proved to be true, with this year's event attracting close to 200,000 visitors.
Twenty years ago, the very first Festival of Speed attracted around 27,000 spectators in what was a far more humble event than today's spectacle, which is widely regarded as the biggest celebration of auto culture and racing in the world. The 2012 Festival set a new record with 146,000 attendees. Even before the gates opened this year, pre-sales pointed to 2013 smashing that figure. Ultimately, a little over 195,000 people made the journey to Goodwood House in West Sussex to check out everything the Festival of Speed had to offer.
In celebrating 20 years, Goodwood hosted a 'Best Of' showcase of some of the event's most popular cars, motorcycles, riders & drivers, events and features from the past two decades. These included Bob Riggle's awesome 'Hemi Under Glass' wheelstanding Barracuda drag car, Kenny Roberts in action on his championship-winning Yamaha YZR500, rare Auto Union and Mercedes-Benz pre-war racers, Peter Fonda on the 'Easy Rider' Harley chopper, and the return of racing legends including Giacomo Agostini, John Surtees, Stirling Moss, Nelson Piquet, Jackie Stewart, Freddie Spencer, Carlos Sainz, Bjorn Waldegard, Derek Bell, Jacky Ickx and many, many more. In fact, more than 150 motorsport legends and special guests were in attendance this year.
In addition to its own anniversary, Goodwood also acknowledged a number of motorsport milestones this year, including the 90th Anniversary of the Le Mans 24 Hour Race, 50 years of McLaren Racing, 50 Years of Lamborghini, 50 years of Mini's Cooper S and Ford's Lotus Cortina, 60 Years of the World Championship for Sports Cars, and 40 years of the World Rally Championship. A collection of 'Martini' cars was also assembled, with Porsches, Lancias and Jaguars on show bearing the famous striped livery of the Italian beverage brand in their 150th anniversary year. Aston Martin's 100th anniversary was also acknowledged, but curiously, the 60th Anniversary of Chevrolet's Corvette seems to have been overlooked.
Another major celebration this year centred on the 50th Anniversary of Porsche's performance car icon - the 911. The lawn in front of Goodwood House, where the traditional 'feature sculpture' is placed, was this year devoted to the 911. Created once again by Gerry Judah, this year's sculpture featured a trio of the rear-engined performance cars suspended 35 metres in the air by intersecting poles suggesting speed and movement. The three cars comprised an original 1963-model 911, 1973 911 Carrera RS 2.7 and 2013-model 911, all from Porsche's heritage collection.
Porsches weren't just up in the air; they were also on the track, with a parade of all seven generations of the 911 (along with other rare and significant Porsche vehicles) taking to the Goodwood hillclimb track twice daily. 911s have been a part of the Festival of Speed since the beginning in 1993, so that heritage, as well as Porsche's own, was celebrated at Goodwood. There was also an exclusive 911 class - 911 Nirvana - at the Cartier Style et Luxe Concours d'Elegance competition.
This year, the Festival of Speed was blessed with splendid weather each day (the Brits were calling it tropical!), which made the "Daytona Beach" display for Land Speed Record cars and bikes the perfect place to enjoy the sunshine. Alongside the likes of Sir Malcolm Campbell's V12 Bluebird V, Donald Campbell's Bluebird CN7 (fitting, since this record-setter was unveiled at Goodwood in 1960), Sir Henry Seagrave's Golden Arrow, Renault's 'Etoile Filante' (Shooting Star) gas turbine car and Gary Gabelich's Blue Flame, there were also future LSR contenders, including the 'Bloodhound Project' (which aims to break the current 1,228 kph record), '52 Express' jet bike and 'Jet Reaction,' a rocket-powered LSR motorcycle.
Unlike September's Goodwood Revival, which focuses on classics, the Festival of Speed welcomes road and race machinery of all ages, so there was plenty of new metal to see. The spectators' appetite for new cars was fed by the Moving Motor Show (MMS). Held on the Thursday prior to the main three Festival days, the MMS saw more than 20 manufacturers, from Abarth to Volvo, take part, with a number of UK and world debuts. Amongst the manufacturer displays, Ford's 'Four Storeys Of Fords' stack of the latest Focus and Fiesta models was a standout.
Speaking of debuts, McLaren presented their new P1 to the public, with this version bedecked in a more striking and sinister all-over black than the yellow version on static display at Geneva earlier this year. Joining the P1 for public running (ie. in action, not static) debuts at Goodwood were the Vuhl 05 from Mexico, twin-turbo V10-powered GTA Spano from Spain, German-built SIN R1, Innotech Aspiron from the Czech Republic, and Porsche's stunning new 918 Spyder, which arguably stole the show on the Supercar Run.
Alfa Romeo's new 4C coupe, the drop-top Toyota GT86 Roadster, Range Rover Sport, Rolls-Royce Wraith and Vencer Sarthe (no, we'd never heard of this Dutch-built supercar either) also made their debuts at the Festival of Speed.
As is tradition now at Goodwood, star drivers from all racing disciplines were in attendance for the 20th Anniversary Festival, with Formula 1's latest, including Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton, Roman Grosjean and Heikki Kovalainen joined by the sport's greatest in Alain Prost, Stirling Moss, John Surtees, Rene Arnoux, Emerson Fittipaldi and Jackie Stewart, amongst others. Red Bull Racing's "suits" in the form of Team Principal Christian Horner and designer Adrian Newey, also got involved, testing the Infiniti Q50 luxury saloon on the Goodwood hillclimb course.
F1 cars were a part of the fun, too, with classic McLarens joining the latest Ferrari, Petronas Mercedes, McLaren Mercedes, Red Bull Renault and Lotus Renault cars in taking on the famous Goodwood hillclimb and smoking up the tyres for an appreciative crowd.
Of course, the hillclimb is the highlight of the Festival of Speed, and draws throngs of spectators. This year was no exception, with thousands lining the 1.16-mile course all weekend. All manner of machinery takes on the course, some more successfully than others. This year, a Porsche 962C and the Italdesign Giugiaro Parcour concept both found out the course can bite if you don't respect it, crashing, but not seriously.
Stars on the hillclimb included Peugeot's '208 T16 Pikes Peak' beast, fresh from Sebastien Loeb's record-smashing run at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in the US. Driven by Peugeot Sport test driver Gregory Guilvert at Goodwood, the 875bhp T16 did a best early run of 45.86 seconds, which was equalled by Nick Heidfeld in a Lola-Toyota B12/60 shortly after. In the Sunday Shootout - the run that really counts - top time went to Justin Law, who did a 45.95 second run in a 1987 Jaguar Group C XJR8/9, a similar machine to the 1988 Le Mans 24 Hour winner.
If pure power was more your thing, you couldn't go past the Marshall Amplification funny car. Described as 'The World's Most Powerful Car' at Goodwood, this Mustang-based quarter mile weapon features a supercharged 500ci V8 engine that puts out a reported 8,000 horsepower, and put out a lot of smoke on its demonstration burnouts!
With the World Rally Championship celebrating its 40th birthday this year, there was a big focus on the Festival's Skoda Forest Rally Stage, with improvements made to this section for 2013. More than 80 new and old rally cars were in action, including the latest VW Polo R WRC and Citroen DS3 WRC, along with dozens of classic rally specials from Ford, Audi, Saab, Lancia, Fiat, Mini and more. The 208 T16 Pikes Peak had a crack on the Rally Stage, too. 'Stars of the slide' who took part included Mikko Hirvonen, Carlos Sainz, Hannu Mikkola, Juha Kankkunen, Rauno Aaltonen and Bjorn Waldegard.
Along with most regular elements of the Festival of Speed, the Cartier Style et Luxe Concours d'Elegance was a 'Best Of' this year, with many cars amongst the 40+ entrants being invited back for the 20th Anniversary. Highlights amongst this high-quality, big-dollar field included the Binder-bodied 1929 Bugatti Type 41 Royale, and the out-of-this-world Phantom Corsair originally designed by Rust Heinz (of Heinz soup fortune) in 1938. Both these cars were class winners, in the Age of Elegance and Streamlined Sophistication categories respectively.
Post-war cars in the Style et Luxe included rarities and exotica like Fiat's Turbina, numerous Ferraris and Maseratis (as you'd expect), Jaguar's XKSS (another class winner) and more. Best of Show, as determined by a judging panel comprising McLaren F1 designer Gordon Murray, Kevin McCloud from TV's Grand Designs, Marc Newson and Terence Conran, amongst others, went to a 1955 Lancia Aurelia B24S Spider.
A new-for-2013 'Supercar Park' feature enabled Goodwood visitors in approved high-performance cars to park within the event perimeter, becoming part of the display while enjoying easier access to all of the Festival of Speed's attractions.
The Festival of Speed auction, conducted by Bonhams created a massive buzz when it set a new record of AU$32 million for the Mercedes-Benz W196R F1 car driven to victory in two Grands Prix by Juan-Manuel Fangio. A new record price was also achieved for a Maserati (AU$6.66M) in an auction that itself set a record of AU$59.8 million in total sales.
Lighter moments included an appearance by real-life versions of cars from the Wacky Racers cartoon show, another 'wacky' racer in the form of Renault's 'Twizy F1' concept, a recreation of the bizarre 1803 Trevithick steam carriage, the equally bizarre 1917 Miller 'Golden Submarine' streamlined racer, as well as stunt maestro Terry Grant's impressive displays of car control - including from outside the car! - in the UK equivalent of an Aussie Legends racer.
All up, it's estimated more than 500 vehicles were on show and in action across all four days, making this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed undoubtedly the biggest in the event's 20 year history. The only question to come out of this year's event is 'How will Lord March top it next year?'
Photographers: Ian Roxburgh, Adam Beresford, John Colley, Jochen van Cauwenberge, Marcus Dodridge, Matt Ankers, Jonathan Stewart. All courtesy of Goodwood media.
