Goodwood Festival of Speed 2014 PICS!

[Lucky]

Bear with me, this one's a stinkah! However, over the next few days I hope to be bringing you some of the sights of the world's premier celebration of motorsport in all its myriad forms. I've managed to whittle the 1763 photos I took over two days down to... ooooh, only about five hundred or so... so it may take a while to get through them all. For those of you blessed with the typical mayfly attention span of the instant gratification MTV Generation, however, here are some highlights. For those of you with slightly more cerebral stuff keeping your ears apart, stick with us. It's gonna be epic

[Lucky]

Well, it's actually a bit hard to know where to begin. The Festival is so huge that I firmly believe you could spend a couple of days there and still not see everything it has to offer. In fact, I got the opportunity to prove this hypothesis this year by the simple expedient of going on two days. We'd already bought our tickets for the Sunday when a friend at work offered a spare ticket for the Thursday too. Never one to look a gift horse int he mouth, I took it and ran.

This seemed like the ideal solution, in fact; I could rush around on Thursday and take loads of pics, exploiting the more sparse attendance to get close to exhibits that you'd get nowhere near on the Sunday. The Thursday revolves around the Moving Motor Show, where manufacturers showcase their new cars. The glitterati can book drives in the cars, including a hoon up the Hillclimb course itself. Since I'm not one of the beautiful people (I realise this is not news, lol) and modern cars leave me mostly unmoved, this was of little interest to me... maybe if I could have blatted a new La Ferrari up the Hill it might have been of more relevance, but I'm guessing they would have wanted a photocopy of the black Amex card I haven't got before giving me the keys. However, despite the lack of proper hillclimb action, the paddocks are set up and the cars run through tests for roadworthiness on the Thursday. So 99% of the exhibits are there to see, just static. it's like the best car show in the world.

Add in that the attendance is less and it's the ideal scenario to get some pics in. I still resolved to get there as early as possible, just in case. Normally I head straight for the Cartier Style et Luxe concourse d'elegance and the Supercar Paddock, because these tend to be amongst the most busy. So we may as well start there, then...

The Supercar Paddock, as the name implies, is a showcase of new sporting zeniths, some production, some race-converted, some one off specials. It's a measure of how exceptional the cross-section is that something like a brand new California T only warrants a single photo of one wheel in this company



As you'd expect, there were a couple of other examples of Fezza. The 458 Italia is a grower; I wasn't sold at first, but like many modern Ferraris the styling grows into you. I still think they'd benefit from simpler shapes but then this is the price you pay for roadcars exploring the edges of physics... safely and predictably. This seems to mean you end up with a lot of fins and flaps and things. As evidenced on the Speciale







This F12 TRS Barchetta wasn't content with "just" being a brand new 2014 hypercar, I understand this version had already been specced up by the factory for it's owner. You get a lot of this kind of thing at Goodwood. Money might not be able to buy you love but a one-off Ferrari probably earns its keep in blowjobs at least





And her elder sister looked prisitine in bridal white, the F12 Berlinetta



The one the hoi paloi were crowding to see was the new La Ferrari, of course. Awesome car, ridiculous name. Since, as any fule kno, "Ferrari" is actually the Italian equivalent of the surname "Smith", this is actually the Ferrari The Smith. It didn't get my girfriend into a coma, she thought it looked a bit silly with its deeley-bopper mirrors. The red car was on its own on the Thursday, joined by the green one by the time we returned on Sunday. They were guarded by very polite Ferrari-liveried flunkies who were under strict instructions by the owners who donated them to not even let us punters move the tape barriers. Not even for photos. Which is why these are featuring some funny angles. And by the way; that green! What the actual ...!?







Italy most definitely doesn't have it all its own way in the supercar world at the moment. There are plenty of modern upstarts baying at its heels, as well as some of the established old guard. Such as the eminently capable Porsche 918, here in splendid Martini livery over matt black and fresh from setting a truly ridiculous time at the 'Ring. The time? You have to look close, it's hidden in plain view











Alfa were showing their baby supercar, the gorgeously petite and perfectly-formed 4C mid-engined beauty. I like the cluster eyes. Like a wolf spider





My google-fu is weak so I can't tell you much about the Arash AFB. I get the impression it may be along the lines of a well-to-do gent wanting to basically build a supercar named after him. It looks well, in the very up-to-date idiom and appears to have one-third of a flux capacitor gleaming in gold in the engine bay





Nice to see other British manufacturers representing; we are traditionally the masters of small-volume madness after all. Ginetta's very capable G60;



But no-one does crazy like the bonkers Dutch fellas. Spyker traditionally plough their own styling furrow while throwing out artisitic insanity that ought to look terrible but pulls it off in the same strange way that David Beckham modelling Belstaff waxed cotton gear just works. Even if it sounds like it'd be about as sexy as Beyonce modelling surgical support stockings. Actually... *ahem* anyway, the B6 Venator is a truly great Spyker loony tune, complete with quilted leather roadster humps and Latin motto on the rear deck (Something along the lines of "The road is impassable without grip", to save you firing up Google Translate. Didn't Pirelli pretty much trademark that one already?). I love the interior as well, the tango-tan leather and exposed aircraft-heritage motifs in bare metal. Sequential gearshift is a nice touch, too













Just like seemingly any show you go to nowadays, the paddock was infested with big Datsuns. Specifically, the R35 that we're not allowed to call a Skyline. However, it seems to have much in common with its predecessors; not least its prodigious performance envelope and the fact that every year seems to bring a new Nismo special edition. So here's one;





This competition car featured extremely weird wrap patterns. It's almost like splinter camouflage, maybe no-one pointed out that it didn't work so well for the Scharnhorst. Joking aside (and the Battle of North Cape is no laughing matter, after all) this seems to have been a car from a Pacific Rim GT series and used in testing. It's been autographed by loads of drivers. I'd love to know the story. It's curiously hypnotic, if you stare at it long enough I think it'd be possible to give yourself psychotic episodes and convince yourself you're the reincarnation of Gunga Din or Pitt the Younger or something









This year is the centenary of Maserati, and as you'd expect there were a lot of Maseratis spread throughout the Festival. I love the new models... actually, I love almost all Maseratis, even ones Clarkson says we shouldn't. But especially the new crop of gentleman's express cars such as these Gran Turismo and Gran Cabrio examples. How trippy is the white-to-blue pearl on that Cabriolet, by the way? (NB if your monitor is crap this may not actually be trippy in the slightest. If all you see is a grey-ish white car, sorry about that. You'll just have to take my word on it)





Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how gullible you are and how much of the electric-cars-will-save-the-planet spiel you've swallowed), electric and hybrid cars are here to stay now that many people with much money and political influence have sunk much of that much money into creating the demand through clever econo-political manipulation. So you might as well enjoy it if you can. Fortunately, traditionally the way car manufacturers persuade Joe Public that their new technology is zut-alors amazoid is to build some hot-poop rocketship around it. BMW throw their hat into the ring with a car blighted by the usually dismal BMW lack of naming imagination. This is the i8. Yep, small "i". Big "8". Deal with it... hey, it's getting off lightly with a name like that, the original concept car debuting the hybrid turbodiesel technology laboured under the extremely Teutonic monicker of "BMW Concept Vision Efficient Dynamics". Those cerrrrrr-azee fun lovin' Germans, eh?

[re japi]

Nice pics!

Arash? What a h**l is that? That Spyker looked awesome! And I really liked that BMW concept too...

I planning to come to Goodwood next year. Shame that I didnt come this year, they had awesome rotaries on show

[Lucky]

No idea. My google is weak and I found little about Arash beyond their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/arashcars

The Festival is (in my opinion) the best motoring show, period. Well worth a visit even if there aren't any rotaries!

As I said in the spiel, the Supercar paddock often debuts cars not even available yet, which is a bit of a treat for those of us unable to flit over to Geneva for the traditional venue for unveilings. The Lamborghini Huracán was here looking very mean in satin black. This is the new replacement for the Gallardo, revealed at Geneva this year and not yet available to buy. In traditional Lambo naming conventions, Huracán is not just the Spanich for "hurricane" but also the name of a famous fighting bull from 1879. And the Mayan god of wind, storms and fire. Apparently









In amongst all this shock and awe, the Lexus LFA somehow contrives to seem almost ordinary... which I actually don't mean in a derogatory way. In actual fact, often supercars seem like they would be utterly infuriating in the real world (ever seen anyone try to parallel-park a Countach?) and you know you'd be loathe to use it just from frustration at how impractical it was. The LFA, despite being one of the most expensive cars here - or maybe because of it - looks like a car you could actually use for popping down Lidl for the groceries if you wanted. And being ferociously fast and capable doesn't hurt its appeal, of course





McLaren are a staunch supporter of the Festival of Speed, have been since the very first one, and always represent in an excellent fashion... as befits a company that holds the outright hillclimb record and most likely always will. The paddocks all held a smattering of Woking's finest, such as this rather natty MSO 650S. Sharing lots of componentry with the epic P1, I never get tired of looking at how the aero and efficiency has dictated the car (or just how bonkers those headlights are). McLaren above all let science shape their vehicles







Mercedes are another long-time mainstay of the FoS, and always bring superb Silver Arrows along as well as more modern schmutter. I have a lot of ungentlemanly urgings towards this lairy matt orange SLS AMG GT3S. It sounds absolutely armageddon, shame you can't hear it in these pics, lol









and for those of you who need the tri-star in your lives but want something a bit more civilised (but not much) and slower (but not much), there was an "ordinary" AMG SLS Black edition. Ironically, in white. Y'see? German sense of humour. Legendary (sorry, Thomas )







Since they live literally five minutes down the road from Lord march's pad, it's probably inevitable that Rolls Royce always have a strong presence too. I guess their clientelle includes plenty of the Jontys and Jocastas flying in to the Drivers Clubs all day in their private helicopters, too. Anyway, my little one like the Wraith since he got a go in one at the Breakfast Club, so they get the thumbs up from Clan Lucky. And if you look close enough, you can see the whole world reflected in the headlights. Which is trippy and therefore coooool. The trick Spirit of Ecstasy popping up from her cubbyhole like the start of Camblewick Green is also pretty groovy, even though she is a vestigial shadow of her former self







The Sin R1 is quite a beast. A tubular chassis informed by racing experience, clad in carbonfibre sexy clothes and shoved along by a mid-mounted 6+ litre Chevy V8, what's not to like? A collaboration between German and British expertise, it shows what can be done if we all get along, lol.Alleged to be capable of over 200mph in race trim, the road version is "only" around 186 top end. Fortunately I got the chance to get some pics in before the driver parked it quite sternly into the straw bales at the infamous Molecomb corner. This is the first year that the Supercar run has been timed up the hillclimb. Just sayin'













Even amongst this embarrassment of riches (and the super-rich) there were a couple of cars that stood out as really having that OMG factor. One of them was even called One. In fact, rather like New York, it's so good they named it twice. Can you tell what it is yet?



Yes, this is the ultimate expression of the Koenigsegg Agera, called the "One:1" and apparently named in honour of the fact that it matches every kilo in weight with one horsepower. It is in every regard absolutely mind-blowing and no surprise. If you search for interviews with Christian Koenigsegg on YouTube you'll see what an utter obsessive passion and steely determination the man has to make the best even better, and this is reflected in his cars. And it has carbon fibre wheels that quite frankly I just wanted to lick and to love















The final shock-and-awe moment came from Pagani's very understated new offering, the Huayra. Now, last year there was a silver one at the FoS and I wasn't very kind about it. My objection was along the lines that whilst each individual detail was amazing and some kind of absolute acme of its kind, put together the overall effect was rather too much, and possibly even hideously ugly, dare I say. However, this year there was an example in a beautiful deep burgundy and it transforms it for me. All the individual features are still amazing, and you can marvel at the craftsmanship and carbon fibre or titanium perfection in items as mundane as a windscreen wiper linkage, but now the whole hangs together as well. This really is a car where the more you look the more you see... and there are no corners cut, no rough edges hidden away out of sight. Everything here is the best you can get and at last I'm starting to understand the astronomical price tag. and that's purely on an aesthetic level, even before you start to take in the fact it's absolutely drenched in active aero with reactive flaps and wings bestrewn all over it. Amazing

...but I'd still take the LFA home with me

[Lucky]

Moar.....this might take some time, this thread ;-|


So, with the tawdry and slighty vulgar nouveau riche seediness of the avaricious iconography of the supercar paddock disposed with, it was time to wander further afield. On the Thursday, parked nonchalantly outside the Supercar Paddock was one of the more unmissable sights of the FoS. Not because of its rarity, value, or place in motoring history, but more because it's truly bloody ridiculously gargantuan. Rare be it for me to give Clarkson's performing monkey Hammond any credulity, but on this occasion he's right. These silly things do have some presence. The snappily-named Brabus G63 AMG 6x6. In a word; big







On the way from the Supercars to the stable-yard lawn and the Style et Luxe, you pass the Stable Yard itself. It's proper Downton Abbey, I tell thee. Anyway, the Stable Yard plays host to a specific display most years, whether it's celebrating the career of a specific driver or marque or whatever. This year Maserati were camped out in honour of their centenary. So, if you like, we can stop off for a quick look?



Yeah, it's a big stable yard... anyway, as you may already know, the Maserati marque is named after the six brothers who began it at the turn of the 20th Century. Eldest Carlo began making his own engines to fit into Fiat racers, and brought in next eldest Alfieri to help him. Carlo died young of lung disease, but Alfieri went on to found the proper independent Maserati company, making their own chassis and motors. The other brothers came in along with him, and indeed when Count Orsi bought the company out of its financial troubles in the late 30s, it was on the proviso that the remaining brothers remained with the firm for ten years. Alfieri was already dead, following injuries during a racing crash he lost a kidney amongst other things and passed following complications from an operation. In his honour, the current Maserati firm, finally under ownership of arch-rival Ferrari (OK, then... Fiat if you must), have unveiled a concept named in his honour















It deserves to be made, if only too see those insane wheels enter production! The ultra-modern wasn't the only exhibit in the Stable Yard, of course. You've already seen that lovely Quattroporte in the first pic





So how about this gorgeous old 3500GT? Originally, of course, the Maserati brothers didn't dirty their hands making road cars. They made limited numbers of hand-built racers that privateers could buy (and win in) and sold engineering exercises to other companies to develop and build. When they finally did lower themselves to make road cars it was under Orsi leadership, having hired the legendary engineer Gioacchino Colombo, Jano's ex-apprentice. The brothers had departed the firm by then, and though Colombo's engineering and Giulio Alfieri's engine design the company not only brought the domination of the 250F to the racetracks but the 3500GT sell a new quality of gentleman's grand tourer to the cognoscenti





The sixties brought more sporting models to sit alongside the GTs, such as the Mistral. Named after a fast, hot wind, it started the occasional convention of Maseratis being named after winds.



shortly before the sale of the firm to Citroën in 1968, the first Maserati to be designed by the great Giugiaro emerged, the Ghibli. This is, as any fule no, the Moroccan name for the Sirocco desert wind. Not, in any way, to be confused with a VW. This is a dry-sumped v8 supercar of the proper hairy-chested old school. Maserati more than many of the Italian marques, jumped between the carrozerias for their bodywork, using Frua, Touring, Ghia, Bertone, Italdesign pretty much all of them in fact. Sometimes the same platform would have different styles from different coachbuilders. The Ghibli was all Ghia and Giugiaro though, and set the vibe for many of the greats that would follow such as the Bora, Merak and Khamsin and other 70s greats (yeah, OK the last one was Gandini... sue me)







Unfortunately, the Stable Yard wasn't open on the Thursday as they were still setting up the display, so those pics came from the Sunday. Which meant a lot of them were spoiled by buffoons blundering into the way. *sigh* And, in similar theme, Right outside the Yard on the Stable Drive is the traditional mustering ground for Chris Evan's display of cars. You can't like motors and be unaware of his love of Ferraris, but of late he's seemingly been branching out into other marques as well. The man might be an insufferable vehicle for pure ego in its distilled form, but you have to respect the way he's happy to park his preposterously expensive cars up for three days and let thousands of us proles blunder around them, gently massaging them with belt buckles, rucksacks, zips, small children or anything else to hand. Since the SWB California he bought (James Coburn's old one) was the most expensive road car ever sold at auction at the time ... at a cool £5.6 million IIRC... it's quite an act of trust on his behalf that the thousands of visitors will treat it with the respect it deserves.



Mind you, he could afford a couple of scratches or dents, it's not like it's even the only 250 Ferrari he owns... how about a Lusso Competizione



...or a "regular" 250GT SWB...



...or maybe a 250GT LWB Berlinetta?



Hard not to hate the guy, innit, lol? But wait, we're not done yet. Maybe a 275GTS Spyder is more to your taste?



or perhaps that icon of unobtrusive undercover police transport in the USA, the 365GTB4? Yeah, OK you can call it a Daytona if that's more comfortable. Ferrari naming conventions suck massively anywyay (see previous Goodwood Italiano Breakfast Club thread for further evidence)



There are some moderns in his stable, too, including a truly horrifically nastily painted 599. About as modern as I really want to go is the last "proper" Ferrari. That's not simply my own partisan bigotry, either (though there's an element of that involved, too *cough*) but it is unarguably the last car signed off by ol' Enzo himself before he went to that great racing paddock in the sky. Like I said, I repsect evans for leaving cars such as this out to the rigors of the show. By the end of the three days (when this was taken) the poor old F40 was covered in sandy dust from the Goodwood soil, tree sap, ice cream drips, rain, scuffed fingerprints, you name it!





Although if you can afford a stable of cars like this, I guess you can afford a crew of flunkies to clean and maintain them. As featured here, the scruffy little dude also seen tuning a Lamborghini Urraco on Wheeler Dealers



Evans, as I mentioned earlier, has brought some of his other marques along in recent years. He shows a certain love of film cars, which is no bad thing. Apparently the DB5 coupe was one of the "hero" cars in Goldeneye. The convertible DB5? It's nothing special. Except that it's a Volante DB5, what the hell more do you need?







He did also have a Mini homage to the cars from the Italian Job, an E-Type, a Miura and a Ferrari TR61 on show but by now I was too twisted up with jealously and loathing for the little ginger **** that I couldn't get any photos of them. That, and the fact they weren't about at the time we were passing through on the way home, lol

[Lucky]

If, instead of heading across the lawns from the Stable Yard, you instead head down the hill and into the shade of the large old limes and Scots pines crowding the bottom of the gardens, you find the secluded Cathedral Paddock nestling amongst the woods. This is usually my favourite of the two main paddocks for a few reasons. One is it's surrounded by trees, which always calm me down lol. They also lend an air of seclusion and privacy to the place. Mirroring its name, this is a true cathedral of motorsport, a place of hushed worship and communion, not the rushed and noisy, brash melee of the thronging masses chasing the media-friendly corporate sponsor product in the F1 paddocks. This, I always feel, is a special place for people who really get it.

The superb and often diverse mix of machinery helps set the vibe, too. Here you'll find behemoth veteran pioneers of the earliest speed trials rubbing wheels with sleek potent Group C icons alongside rally weapons all blistered arches and function-over-form menace. Open-wheel single-seaters sit next to their more svelte closed sisters. This is truly somewhere you can see things you'll likely never see anywhere else, ever again. For example, on of my clear favourites of this years Festival;



This is one of the rarest cars in the world, because only two were ever made in the first place. Bear in mind this one has recently been re-assembled from the remnants of the original and no-one knows what became of its sister car, you can say with certainty this car is actually unique



Add in the fact that it was built in 1911 for the specific purpose of taking the land speed record from the awesome Blitzen Benz and you start to think this is going to be something a bit special, maybe in the mould of the great LSR cars such as the Golden Arrow, Sunbeams or Bluebirds.



Shall we have some facts and figures, then? This gargantuan monster goes by the unlovely name of the Fiat S76. It has spoked wheels, bicycle tyres and no front brakes. It's chain drive. The rear brakes are non-assisted lever-operated. It made 290 brake horsepower and topped 180 miles per hour in 1912, almost before roads were invented. It's got four-inch long exhausts. It has a TWENTY EIGHT litre straight-four cylinder engine. That's seven litres per cylinder. When this thing fires up, the effect on every living thing within half a mile is profound to say the least. Respect is due





"Dashboard" mounted into the wooden firewall (!) is minimal to say the least. Most of it is centred around the manual oiling pumps. I think it's fair to say those pioneering motorists were brave!







Another, very different car resurrected from its grave is also here in the Cathedral. Unlike the Fiat, there wasn't enough of one of these left to re-assemble. This one has been painstakingly re-created from original schematics and whatever spares could be scavenged. The Ferrari 156 "Sharknose" definitely deserves commemorating, though. Not just because of its surreal beauty but because it utterly dominated in the initial days of the new 1961 1.5 litre F1 formula in the hands of Phil Hill...and then Ferrari crushed them all. So this might be a replica (albeit one you couldn't even remortagage your house to afford) but there you go. Find another one... oh no, you can't. What always amazes me about these post-war F1 cars is just how tiny they are. They really are just a smooth tub with a wheel at each corner and just enough room for a slightly derranged pilot and engine.











Everywhere you look here there are genuine legends of the track. Truly iconic, genre-defining titans that even if you mentioned it to your mum she'd have heard of one (she says hi, by the way, and make sure you put fresh socks on). For example, the Bugatti Type 35 in all its incarnations was the most winningest thing on four wheels in its day. Works and lease cars won well over 1000 races tween-wars. This 35C supercharged version showed the cars talent in sports car racing as well as Grands Prix, winning the 1929 Targa Florio. Somehow it seems appropriate that such a legend in its own time should be sat mild and unassuming under a tarpaulin in a dingy corner of the tent village. Those who've been there and done it don't need to shout so loud...





And of course, it's not all about the ancients. Here you can also find more recent warriors such as the V8 Vantage Evo so brutally interfaced with the Flint Wall by Anthony Reid later in the Festival. Get well soon



...or even a slightly more up-to-date example of the evergreen Vantage stable;





Or if sportscars aren't your bag either, how about a true berserker from the ultimate axe-murderer class of racing, a Group B Lancia 037 in all its supercharged rip-snorting glory? Careful, this one'll bite you



Or just as bonkers but maybe slightly less dangerous to know, one of the zaniest shapes ever to disprove the myth of German po-facedness, the BMW 3.0 CSL Batmobile. Because after all, why not take a luxury autobahnstormer like the CSi, strip it out, add insane aero modifications and give it an "L" for "Leicht", then call it a race car?



Fair to say, if you can't find something life-affirming here in the nave or transepts of the Cathedral trees then you might actually be the vanguard of the Zombie Apocalypse and haven't realised it yet... OK, how about an Altered Fuel dragster then? Rat Trap makes a welcome return to the Festival. One of the loudest things you'll ever experience! Note I said "experience" rather than "hear". It's too loud to hear. You absorb the aural assault with every inch of your being rather than anything as mundane as hearing it through the ears







Anyway, now the introductions are over, let's get down to it, boppers. As I mentioned, this is the 100th year of Maserati and the Festival featured an entire class for those cars bearing the Bologna Trident from the statue of Neptune. These ran from ancient, like this 'ere Tipo 26M, the oldest Maserati here, dating from 1931. The "M" stood for "Monoposto" (single-seat) though several two-seaters were made for rally events. This one is recently restored, though it's nice to see the original patina has remained in most areas. And you still need a good mallet for tyre changes. Despite the cushion, the cockpit seems an uncomfortable, un-reassuring place to be. Note the way the driver's feet straddle the exposed gearbox and prop, for example...











Four years later, the V8RI was pioneering all-independent supsension and might have been more successful had it had a less complex engine than the new V8, a departure from the straight blocks Maserati had used hitherto. It still won GPs, though.



Forward another four years, onto the cusp of War and then once hostilities ceased, and the 4C and 4CLT were clearing up in the Voiturette class of GP racing. The 1100 engines could push these cars up to 140mph, especially in the twin-supercharged 4CLT. Front-engined cars were still the norm and the tubular chassis that was such a signature of Maserati was becoming a design icon.





Also released in 1939, into the premier class this time, the 8CTF led most Grands Pix that year. Designed by the youngest Maserati brother, Ernesto, the car could also be turned towards other disciplines of racing with great success. Int he hands of Wilbur Shaw, this "Boyle Valve Special" won Indianapolis in '39 and '40 and would have won again the next year had a bad tyre not put it out of contention





Of course, when it comes to defining GP achievement, the car most people associate with Maserati triumph is the 250F of the late 50s. It was real treat to see two of these here. The #1 car was driven by Fangio himself, to such victories as the German GP where after a messed-up pitstop he drove the lap of his life, taking a clear seven seconds off his own lap record (at the old Nurburgring, the most dangerous track ever) and passed the Ferraris of Hawthorn and Collins just before the finish line./ The other car is a later V12 variant, no less beautiful and if anything even better sounding than Fangio's 6-pot, though less effective perhaps due to being in the twilight of the design's years by then

[Lucky]

I remember seeing and interview with Stirling Moss once (he knew a thing or two about going quick, y'know) and he said for ages he was baffled by his team-mate and genuine living legend Fangio. It appeared that when he drove F1 cars, Fangio was pretty much unbeatable, even when they were in identical machinery. Yet in sportscars, Moss could give the Argentine a run for his money and even beat him. Eventually he discovered that Fangio had no truck with tedious conventions like looking through a corner into the apex and then to the outside clipping point and all that rubbish, like conventional wisdom dictated. Instead, he was looking at exactly where his inside front wheel was in the corner at all times. When he was in a closed-body sportscar, he could no longer see the wheel and therefore couldn't judge the corner so well.

Strangely, Valentino Rossi once said similar in an interview, back when he was at the absolute zenith of his powers and pretty much invincible. Asked about his awkward-looking style of looking down at the front of the bike rather than through the corner he responded that it was because he wanted to see what the wheel was doing in relation to the corner. "Why do I want to look up the track?" he asked. "I know where it goes, it's the same every lap".

So, we'd better look at some closed-bodied sportscars then, hadn't we? And since we were on about Maseratis, we'll stick with them, yeah? How about a lovely A6GCS, then. This Colombo-designed 2 litre six-pot 1955 car competed against much larger-engined sportscars and yet managed a third in the Mille Miglia, proving yet again size isn't everything. It shows the lovely twin-bubble arch style that was a Maserati signature for the longest time. And those gorgeous duck-egg blue Veglia gauges...









Perhaps the ultimate expression of this style, and certainly the best known, was the "Birdcage". The outrageously exaggerated arches stretched taut over the intricate yet extremely strong network of the tube frame that gave the Tipo 61 its name. This was never intended as a works racer, rather it was as mass-produced as Maserati got in the late 50s in order to sell to customer race teams.





Some customers took things a bit further than the little birdcage's envisioned design brief, however. Tommy Atkins built this Cooper T61-P "Monaco" car for Roy Salvadori to race and replaced what he saw as the inadequate Maserati 2.9 litre four cylinder with a 4.3 litre V8. Needless to say, the embarrassment of power somewhat overwhelmed the handling, rendering the car a beast to drive. Although it did win the Goodwood Whitsun Trophy in 1964







The Tipo 151/3 was a rather less elegant solution to racing design, following the trend for "breadvan" styling in the early 60s. Despite widened track and lowered engine, the untested aerodynamics were form rather than function and despite the purposeful looks, the car was very unstable at speed.





The Maserati Centenary was in no way content to rest upon laurels of glories past, however. Nope, it came right up to date with an impressive line-up of modern machinery brought out since the rejuvenation of the firm under Fiat ownership and Ferrari guidance



Indeed, this MC GT3 is the latest car to enter the racing crucible, having literally just been homologated and not had the chance to compete at the time of the Festival. If it goes as well as it looks...



And there was a smattering of MCs as well, such as the baby blue MC 12 GTT that won the 2010 drivers and team titles in the GT1 World Championship. Yeah, maybe it's a Ferrari Enzo in a fat suit. And that's bad because...?







That car was a development of this one, the MC12 that won every title from 2004 to 2008 and only the rules changes really made an update necessary



Arty damp wheel photo included purely because I have a perverse fetish for proper centre-lock motorsports wheels and the addition of some raindrops just enhances my peccadillo...



The final MC12, and our last Maserati (in this section, anyway) was a bit special. In fact, it was making its debut here at the Festival. Given a special one-off paintscheme specifically commemorating the Centenary, it was truly a mobile work of art. And as it proved on the Sunday in the hands of Michael Bartels by setting the second quickest time of the weekend, it's an extremely capable track weapon as well. The artists had airbrushed scenes from Maserati's illustrious racing history into the gunmetal paint, but you had to catch them just so to make them out. Change the angle and they vanished and all you could see were the bolder, obvious "calendar" designs. An excellent piece of painting,but as you'll appreciate, rather tricky to photograph successfully. Hopefully enough of the pictures came out for you to see them though. I hope so, I stood in the rain on Thursday evening for ages playing around with focal lengths trying to get these, lol









We already touched on them with that beautiful Sharknose, but it can't have escaped your notice that Maserati weren't the only red-painted hallowed Italian marque in attendance. There aren't many of Johnny-come-lately Ferraris here in the Cathedral, most habituate the upper paddocks, but there are a few. Such as this adorably pretty 250GT LWB coupe. I guess the Masons weren't around this year to bring their 250 GTO...





Before ol' Enzo upstarted to think he could build his own cars he was, of course, a glorified spanner monkey crew chief for the eldest child of Italian racing dynasties. In fact, this is just my perverted sense of humour. Ferrari under the banner of the Scuderia Ferrari team, were a force of nature that decimated all on the tracks running a prodigiously capable race effort pre-war. And the eldest and grandest of Italian racing marques was of course Alfa Romeo. And if anything ever encapsulated the Italian racing spirit, it's this photo. The team at the FoS spent a lot of the weekend sitting on the wheels or bodywork of their priceless and irreplaceable museum exhibit vehicular charges, chatting, drinking and generally treating visitors with language-barrier fuelled and typically Latinate meh disdain. If they wanted a crafty fag, they observed the many "No Smoking" signs around the paddock to get up and wander off behind their stand banner to "hide" while they puffed away. That this put them about ten feet away from the refuelling station seemed of the absolute least interest to them. Meanwhile, chubby dude sits talking staccato rapid-fire Italian into his phone, accompanied by violent hand waving, at a volume slightly below the pain threshold. Italians, eh. They're just effortlessly cool somehow. They just are...



Anyway, some Alfas then. This elegant 750 Competizione was designed as a prototype for sportscar racing, with a one-off Abarth chassis and Boane styling, but as it turned out, Alfa got the design of their production cars so right that they were perfectly adequate and the expensive prototype project was shelved



The Giulietta SZ Coda Tronca ("trimmed tail") was an absolute triumph of slippery design, capable of over 120mph from just the 97bhp developed by its 1300 4-cylinder engine. It was a spaceframe chassis, with the Kamm tail that gave it the name a vital part of its body shape.





Another little Alfa that punched well above its weight was the GTA 1300 Junior. The bigger 1750 Giulias may have been the poster girls, but the little GTA was a masterpiece of tuning. Adding Spica fuel injection to the production street car raised the engine output from 100 to 163bhp!



The Tipo 159 is perhaps better known by the name "Alfetta" and is a genuine giant of the tracks, even in this company. Enzo Ferrari had a significant hand in the development of the car, frustrated by the decimation of all opponents wreaked by the Mercedes and Auto Union state-sponsored German juggernaut. The War interrupted the Alfetta's progress, but by 1950 it had hit its stride, winning the first F1 championship. This feat was repeated in '51. The fact a certain Juan Manuel Fangio was one driver and Guiseppe Farina the other may have helped

[Lucky]

Right, enough with the fickle Italian thoroughbreds then. How about some good old fashioned British steel? And it doesn't get much more old-fashioned than the original racing blunderbus, the Bentley Speed Six. Allegedly disparagingly referred to by Ettore Bugatti as "the fastest lorries on earth" the straight six behemoths boasting just over a litre displacement per pot were undeniably effective. They may not have had the finesse of their French/Italian opponents, but that didn't matter to W.O. Bentley so long as they were winning. There's a common misconception the supercharged "blower" Bentleys were the ones to have and they've certainly entered folklore but in fact never won le Mans, unlike the N/A cars. W.O. embodied the cliche "to win at the slowest possible speed" and this cautious approach led to solid reliability which as much as outright prowess was the key to Bentley success. Also, he hated the idea of supercharging and felt that if the cars weren't fast enough then it was simply because the engine wasn't big enough.

Featuring at the Festival were three legendary Bentleys, the Speed Sixes known as Old Numbers One, Two and Three. Old Number One won Le Mans in 1929 and 1930, with Number Two second that year. In fact, there were only half of the four consecutive Le Mans wins for Bentley. Rather like George Washington's axe, it's all original despite having four new handles and eight new blades...





The patina on Old Number Two speaks of a more-distant sweep of the restoration brush and it looks much more original than its older sister. And of course, it's still BRG, which matters











Old Number Three was rather more of a bitsa even originally than the other two. Built from one of the last two Speed Six chassis, it was bodied by Van den Plas specifically to be a le Mans racer, but it never reached the heights of the others, its main achievement being 2nd place at Brooklands



And speaking of Brooklands, how about that car I just can't stop taking pics of? It just seems to pop up wherever I am, but I tried to limit my excesses this time, lol. This is, of course, the fastest car that will ever lap Brooklands (barring it miraculously being rebuilt and given the modern value of the real estate on which it once lay and the fact the trust currently can't even maintain the 300 yards of crumbling concrete they have left, it seems highly unlikely). It not only lapped the original race track at 144 mph in the early 30s, it also held 47 land speed records. Not surprising given the prodigious power and torque available from its aeroplane-derived Napier Lion 23.9 litre W-12 engine. Built by the gloriously bonkers Reid Railton (hence it's Napier Railton name), it also features bodywork that is a rhapsody in hand-formed alloy with thousands of hours of an almost lost art on show





In associated news, it doesn't get much more British than something actually called an "English Racing Automobile"... or ERA for short. The firm was a low-budget yet admirably successful attempt to compete in the smaller-capacity Voiturette class, driven down-field by the prohibitive costs of top class GP racing. The early D-Type ERAs featured chassis developed by Reid Railton (again) and the Riley-based 1500cc engine was capable of 200bhp. This 1935 version is a D-Type, R4D, and features absorbing quality of engineering wherever you look. At least designers had embraced the idea that front brakes were a good idea by now!





From a much later era (arf!, era, geddit?) comes an equally brave small-budget enthusiasts' attack in the form of the cumbersomely-named Derrington-Francis ATS... even more cumbrous if you consider that the "ATS" part stood for "Automobili Turismo e Sport". An Italian privateer firm more successful at gorgeously-styled low-production coupes, they boasted such meteoric names as Bizzarrini, Scaglione and Chiti amongst their design cadre. Their GP efforts was raced by such a luminary as Phil Hill, and eventually retired as uncompetitive. Bought by engine tuner Vic Derrington and with Stirling Moss and Rob Walker's ex-mechanic Alf Francis on board, it could have been a rags to riches success... but sadly wasn't. Re-engineered ground-up with a new spaceframe chassis, it was raced only once, retired, and was later damaged. Now restored, it's a tragic nearly-was tale on four wheels. And again, it shows how tiny mid-60s F1 cars were; really a small tub to sit in and just enough car around it to hold an engine and four wheels







Contemporary to the D-F ATS and with a similar naming strategy to the ERA was the perhaps more well known BRM. Standing, of course, for British Racing Motors. The P261 was a good solid car, raced with success by both Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill in the mid 60s. The little 1500cc V8 won two GPs but the greatest success came in the Tasman Series where Stewart won all but one race







Perhaps... OK, unarguably... more astonishing, particularly in terms of packaging, was the V16-engined offering from BRM. Taking advantage of rules that allowed a 1.5 litre engined to be supercharged to compete against the larger 4.5 litre N/A cars, BRMs first car was the unbelievably ambitious P15. Rolls-Royce were contracted to design the centrifugal superchargers (eschewing the more common Roots-type)... in fact, it's alleged that 350 different manufacturers came together to provide components for the car. As Honda were to discover twenty years later, the problem with small-displacement multi-cylinder four strokes is that they end up with a wafer-thin powerband and not even the blown torque of the P15 could mask this. It had a light-switch power delivery... and there was a LOT of power... overwhelming the skinny tyres. The engine also proved fragile, and reliability elusive. Some kind of form was found to fulfill the promise of the outstanding design, and Reg Parnell won the 1950 Goodwood Trophy but rules changes essentially outlawed the car for the next season anyway. It remains then, a glorious failure boasting awesome Swiss watch-style miniature engineering









Stepping back in time a bit comes another one-off built by the gentleman racers who typified the early days of speed. The V12 Sunbeam is amongst many famous sisters in the world of speed record setting, and indeed took the final land speed record to be set at Brooklands at 133mph. This ignores the fact it was also a successful racer in its own right, racing at Brooklands in the early 20s and setting several lap records. It's here only because I forgot to put it in the same post as the Napier Railton





Ahem. We mentioned the loony 3.0 CSL Batmobile earlier. That was developed to break Ford's stranglehold on the European touring/saloon car championships that it had enjoyed in '71 and '72. Ford replied to the Beemer by boring out the Cologne V6 to offer a frankly silly 450bhp for this '73 monster





and in a weird kinda crossover thing, with an American firm making cars in Britain with German engines to compete in European racing, here's the most American of all race cars from the "same" marque Galaxie 500. This was a full-on NASCAR spec car imported by John Willmet for Jack Sears to race. It might have been twice the size of the Minis and half as big again as the Jaguars it shared the track with, but then it had a 7-litre V8 to push it along and it won the British Saloon Championship a decade before the Capri lost to the BMWs.



And equally American in its own strange way, given that GM owned Vauxhall since the 1920s, the Rover SD1 Vitesse of course featured a Buick-derived 3.5 litre V8... yes, "that" Rover V8...and ten years after the Capri, Andy Rouse was at the forefront of the touring car renaissance to take the '84 title. The fact that this was built by his own company and won the title at the expense of the works TWR team can't have failed to cause ol' Tom some embarrassment!



And then in a reversal of roles we get a very British car racing in America. The V12 E-Type was always conceived as a grand tourer, a gentleman's express for the slightly less gentlemanly character. Definitely not a racer. Evidently Bob Tullius wasn't told this and his Group 44 team built up this V12 into a fearsome racing car, winning seven races and the 1975 SCCA Championship.



All of which works out rather neatly... almost as if the author had planned it that way, in fact... because it brings us full-circle to a British race car racing for Britain. Given Jaguar's sporadic recent commercial history of Ford-alikes and only spasmodic returns to racing, it's sometimes easy to forget just what an immense force they were in world sportscar racing. The marque, after all, won le Mans five times in the 50s, three consecutively. Quite an achievement. The first blooming on the Sarthe came in the form of the C (for "Competition")-Type. The car is famously the first triumph for disc brakes, which Jaguar conspired with Dunlop tirelessly (arf! Tirelessly, Dunlop geddit? Oh, never mind) to develop. Coupled with the flexible, powerful and above all reliable XK engine and Malcolm Sayers' beautiful yet very aerodynamic bodywork, it was a fearsomely capable package



The D-Type took over from the C-Type (imaginatively) and hit the ground running. There was a pack of the things at the Festival this year. The #6 car is the one that won le Mans in 1955 in the hands of Mike Hawthorn and Ivor Bueb. Nicknamed the "long nose" for obvious reasons, its enhanced aerodynamics helped stability on the old, faster circuit. The #3 Ecurie Ecosse car took over where the works team left off, winning a further two le Mans in '56 and '57. Some wee kiddie got the best seat in the house here...









And by the magic power of amazing script-writing, plus a healthy dose of being able to see all the photos, lol, we can jump forward to Jaguars' next great halcyon days on the field of battle in the Sarthe. TWR are three letters close to my heart and not just because of their amazing touring car efforts with the RX-7s and input into the Mazda le Mans rotaries. Anyone who sat glued to World of Sport during the glory days of Group C racing in the late 80s will no doubt remember the amazing Silk Cut sponsored Jaguars and their seemingly effortless domination of the field. The seven-litre V12 made a spine-tingling howl, second best noise in endurance racing ever. Fact. (First best? OH, come on!). The gorgeous curves of the XJR9 LM are as bewitching now as they were when it won in '88, and as I've said so often, everything looks better for being painted in fags or booze colours.. even really horrid fags like Silk Cut. The typically tall Group C-style mirrors also have their double use as a vanity mirror for the waff, much to the disgust of some rather pompous passers-by. Relax, guys, it's not like she even touched it, unlike some types I could mention. Yeah, I'm talking to you, the bloke who actually lifted his chubby five-year old onto the wing of a 917 to take a photo of him sitting there...















It would seem rude, then, to pass on a Jag liveried in booze to match the fags. I don't really have clear memories of XJ220s competing in sports, but they clearly did and here's one to prove it, proudly wearing one of motorsports most iconic paintschemes. I love XJ220s at the vest of times. Many were disappointed by how far down-market the spec had gone between inception and delivery of finished cars, but I honestly believe the smaller production car is better-proportioned than the prototype with its massive overhangs. And so it was "only" rear-wheel drive, not AWD... but isn't that more fun anyway? And it only had half the number of cylinders... but ask anyone who's tried to pilot a Metro 6R4 on the limit if they think the engine's wanting for power and see what answer you get! Anyway, apparently TWR took this very car to a class win at le Mans, only to later be disqualified. Tom always did like to sail close to the rule book trade winds...







This blue version was apparently (it says in this 'ere programme) built by Don Law specifically for his son and FoS favourite Justin to tackle the Hillclimb. It is, he claims, the car that the XJ220 should have been all along, and who are we to argue, given how prodigiously fast Justin Law is up the Hill?





Just a few loose ends to round up down here in the secluded charm of the Cathedral then. One is a random Stepside shop truck that presumably belongs to one of the teams and in any custom show would have most people looking twice. Here, in this esteemed company, it's parked to one side under the shadowing trees, overlooked by all. Except me. I like a nice early roof-chopped Advance Design, me



For no obvious reason, this wonderful RS200 is here, too. Sadly, it was static display only and didn't run and that's a shame because it showed massive potential. Take one of the most bonkers Group B widowmakers and hop it up with a modern flava to compete in the MRSA GTO Series. The result is a car with a Cosworth BDTE Evo engine pumping out a frankly crazy 750bhp! Yeah, would have loved to see it run!





It takes something for me to have to admit that the rotary in the paddock wasn't my outright favourite car... although it's a bit like comparing apples and cheese. It did come close, mind, and definitely put out one of the best (and loudest) noises. A Series 3 third gen modified in every way, irritatingly it wasn't listed in the programme so I know little beyond a few glimpses on the forums. I couldn't even tell you what series it's intended to compete in. I can tell you that the headlights seem to be adapted from those eBaytastic Series 6 RX-7 frogeyes though...











In our next thrilling (occasional) installment we'll be moving on up out of the cool verdant shade and into the blazing heat on the hill, up to the Main Paddock via some of the other more disparate sights of the Festival. Stay tuned, groovers

[Hobbawobba]

I always seem to catch this thread late at night, during my quick browse before bed. I'll read it one day!