Vauxhall will take the brand new and surprisingly eagerly awaited Insignia VXR to Goodwood, offering punters there the chance too see and hear the 321bhp V6 saloon in action. Flat out, the VXR will hit 62mph (that's 100km/h in Euros) in six seconds.
Every day of the festival, at precisely 9am and 1.25pm, the VXR will be tearing up the Goodwood Hill, and the rest of the time it will be in the Supercar Paddock. It will be joined there by the
VXR8 Bathurst S Edition - all 6.2-litres of it - which will apparently be unleashed to smoke its rear tyres in front of Goodwood House at some point during proceedings. Nice.
Vauxhall will also show two rare concepts in the form of the 1966 VRX Concept and the impossibly Back II The Future 1970 SRV concept, the latter featuring its very own 'manometer' - basically a 'test your strength' game utilising the handbrake lever that all wannabe SRV drivers had to pass before the ignition would activate. It could be bypassed, however, if the car's 'tache-ometer sensed the driver was wearing the appropriate facial furniture, in which case his or her manliness was pre-approved.
Actually, the manometer measured the outside air pressure - nowhere near as useful. Now, where were we? Oh yes, the VXR will be at Goodwood. Make sure you're at one of the allotted timeslots to see it at the hillclimb. And if you miss it, we'll be driving it a few days later, so hopefully it makes it back in one piece...
Mark Nichol - 23 Jun 2009