There’s nothing like a shared love of cars to bring like-minded people together. So it’s no wonder thousands of petrolheads attend car shows and festivals every year.
The Festival of Speed calls itself the largest and most famous of all the car shows in the calendar. Held 8 – 11 July this year at Goodwood Estate in Chichester, the Festival is an extravaganza to celebrate motorsport, from Edwardian classic cars right through to cutting edge supercars and F1 models. Enjoy the famous Hillclimb and supercar run for your dose of speed.
Founded in 1993, Goodwood Festival of Speed is not a festival with a long history. The creation of this festival can be traced back to a pair of grandparents who love motorsports, Frederick Gordon-Lennox (the 9th Duke of Richmond) and Charles Gordon-Lennox (the Earl of March and Kinrara). The grandfather first made it in 1936. Brought motorsports to Goodwood, his fiefdom, held a mountaineering race in a park in a private domain, and built the Goodwood Motor Circuit locally in 1948; and his grandson brought motorsports back to Goodwood in 1993 and initiated The first Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Different from the major auto shows all over the world, the Goodwood Festival of Speed, on the basis of the introduction of new cars, is also reserved for classic models of different eras (antique car shows) or different themed models (F1 car show, concept car show, etc.). Platform, the eye-catching power of these models should not be underestimated.
Compared with the well-known F1, Le Mans 24 Hours Endurance Race and other events, the Goodwood Festival of Speed allows racing enthusiasts to feel the mechanical feeling brought by motorsports, and also allows racing enthusiasts to experience the different aspects. The charm of classic racing cars of the era because, this Goodwood hill climbing track less than 2 kilometers in length does not have the tire walls and buffers of modern tracks, and some are just barriers made of very old haystacks.Various racing cars spanning over a hundred years are displayed on this track.
The cars participating in the Goodwood Festival of Speed Hill Climb are not limited in type, horsepower, and age. Whether it’s a formula car, or professional racing cars such as WRC, NASCAR, Le Mans prototypes, DTM, Japanese Super GT, etc., as long as the cars you want will appear at Goodwood, even those that can only be statically displayed at the auto show Concept cars, in order to prove that they are indeed able to move, will slip a lap on the hill climbing. It is this characteristic that makes the Goodwood Festival of Speed attract a large number of motor sports enthusiasts.
Obviously, these participating models are completely incomparable, but at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the significance of communication and display is far greater than the competition itself. People participate in this traditional event with joy, and winning or losing has long been ignored. It is very rare for some precious classic old cars to meet the audience.
Although at first it was just a private party , now even manufacturers have used the Goodwood Festival of Speed as a platform to promote their own brands and even release new models. It is not difficult to see that the Goodwood Festival of Speed is just short In the past 20 years, it has developed into a premier international event. After all, compared to a serious and slightly boring auto show, the cultural and entertaining Goodwood Festival of Speed is a better choice for automakers.
Have you been to the Goodwood Festival of Speed? Or other auto shows, welcome to comment of your experience!
