To those not yet acquainted with Goodwood’s largest automotive show, it’s one that would take some explaining. The idea of priceless machinery that surround this year’s theme of ‘horseless to hybrid’, hurtling up a 1.16-mile-long driveway, lined with heavy hay stacks, hospitality areas, and thousands upon thousands of roaring spectators, is one even we struggle to comprehend on times. It sounds like madness, and yet the maddest part is, every year the cars get quicker, the drivers push the limits an extra inch, all for the accolade of being the hill climb’s fastest.
The Festival of Speed is more of a rolling motorshow when compared to Goodwood’s other shows, and allows enthusiasts to experience the latest arrivals from the world’s biggest brands, whilst also appreciating the classics that shaped them. This year, we joined Audi Tradition for the world premiere of the fastest car they’d never built, until now. Classic Driver’s CEO JP Rathgen was on hosting duties throughout the weekend, and brought together some motoring legends, with Mr Le Mans himself Tom Kristensen, The Duke of Richmond and Hans-Joachim Stuck, nicknamed "Strietzel" removing the cover to a roaring audience.
The Auto Union Type 52 'Schnellsportwagen' was created purely for the avid driver, and was intended to be the ultimate daily driver, with the blueprints showing a ladder frame with a mid-engine borrowed from the Type 22. Despite those plans going missing during the cars original built in 1933, they were recently rediscovered, and Audi Tradition took on the major task to recreate the never-built machine using just the original documents. The car features reduced compression over the race cars, allowing the powerful supercharged 16-cylinder engine to run on normal gasoline. We could talk for days about this exceptional machine and be sure to check out our launch article on the car, and it seemed the thousands of onlookers who took the time to check out the car seemed to enjoy it too!
With so many all-electric and cutting-edge cars being unveiled at Goodwood, the Schnellsportwagen brought something entirely different to proceedings, with the Duke of Richmond seemingly very impressed. Throughout the weekend, JP handed the microphones to racing greats of the future and yesteryear, including Stig Blomqvist, Mattias Ekström’s co-driver Emil Bergkvist. To our surprise, BMW Classic’s head Helmut Käs alongside Leopold Prince of Bavaria also came over to take a closer look at the Type 52. You just never know who you're going to bump into at a Goodwood event!
Despite being spread over four days, the Festival of Speed requires precise planning in order to experience everything, and we managed to spot a few highlights along our travels, avoiding the oh-so British rain showers littered across the weekend. BMW continued their show-stopping presence at the event, bringing together a delightful array of M5s through the generations, leading up to the global reveal of the latest version, the most powerful M5 of them all, but also the heaviest.
Elsewhere it was celebrations galore, with Red Bull Racing commanding one of the largest crowds across the weekend, marking 20 RB cars from their history, many of which being driven by F1 greats from the current season and beyond, including Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez, Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda. Red Bull also took the wave of excitement as a chance to reveal the RB17, designed by the one and only Adrian Newey. In front of Goodwood House, a wonderful display marking 100 years of MG Cars took pride of place, bringing more of a horizontal look compared to previous year’s displays that headed skywards.
With all eyes on the Duke’s driveaway, Saturday’s qualifying battled changing weather conditions, but allowed the bravest drivers to head into the sunshine of Sunday ready for action. Roman Dumas, a legendary driver who’s wowed onlookers at Goodwood for years now, managed to wrestle the most unlikely of machines to the top spot. Driving an all-electric Ford Supervan 4.2, Dumas held off a purpose-built Subaru WRX and Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Car to claim victory, finishing the run in a blistering 43.9 seconds. Other highlights on the hill included ChromeCar’s lightning fast JPS Lotus 77 driven by Nick Padmore, and the Calsonic-liveried Nissan Skyline GTR driven with a healthy dosing of style and flair by British Touring Car driver Jake Hill.
With crowds seemingly larger than ever before, it seems Goodwood’s Festival of Speed knocked the brief of bringing together the old and new out of the park, with a jaw-dropping vehicle around every perfectly manicured shrub. As quick as it appears, though, the events team will turn their attention to September, where the return of the much-loved Revival will see golden-age cars and characters aplenty, marking the 2024 show season coming to an end.
