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The Goodwood Festival of Speed is a genuine highlight of our calendar, thanks to its splendid bringing together of past and present, wild and wacky, fast and furious cars from every precinct of motoring. And plenty agree with us, because tens of thousands will descend upon Goodwood house this weekend (3rd - 5th July) to celebrate how brilliant cars are in general.
The suitably melodramatic theme for this year's event is 'True Grit - Epic Feats of Endurance,' which is in homage to racing greats like Stirling Moss, specifically because they do things like winning Grand Prix races with knackered bones; Moss won the 1968 German Grand Prix with a broken wrist, the mentalist. He'll be there this weekend.
It's Audi's centenary year too, so it has erected a massive art installation to celebrate that fact, as well as generally making a big song and dance about how great it is, including bringing a load of Auto Union racers and quattro rally cars along. By the look of the teaser picture Audi released, the 'central feature' art installation is an R8 mounted vertically on a very high, track-inspired plinth. We might be wrong though - it could be a four-inch piece of trick photography.
Other highlights include a vast collection of important people - past and present - from the world of motorsport, including Lewis Hamilton, Eddie Irvine, Stirling Moss and Sebastian Loeb. Some of them will be racing the famous hillclimb in an F1 car or something else suitably exotic, and some will be tackling the purpose-made Goodwood Forest Rally Stage.
There's a supercar run too, which this year will feature the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss edition, the Ferrari California, the barely believable GTbyCitroen concept, and the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport. Oh, and there's an eco race car made mostly from carrots and potatoes too, called the Lola WorldF3rst, which doesn't sound too safe to us, but at least it will smell like farts.
There's also a load of ancient metal to enjoy looking at, including some Bugatti Type 57s, and a few wacky concepts from the 1970s like Vauxhall's wedgy SRV concept and Aston's wedgy Bulldog. In the '70s, wedges were the future, not just naff disco shoes. Mind, we laugh now - in 30 year's time the kids might be laughing at us for thinking that cars made of vegetables are a good idea. That and the G-Whizz.
Goodwood's floodgates are already open, but for those of us who have proper jobs, the gates open at 7am tomorrow (Saturday 4th July) and there are still some tickets available. See www.goodwood.co.uk for details.
Mark Nichol - 3 Jul 2009
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