Goodwood Revival 2012

Goodwood Festival of Speed

Carshow and car race

Starts: 06/28/2012

Ends: 2012-07-01

Goodwood Estate

Chichester, West Sussex

Images© and story by Tim Surman Photography, Contact Photographer For Information on Photos of this Event

GALLERY 4 -- Six Wheel F1 Cars

This year marks the 20th Festival of Speed with titled, 'Young Guns Born To Win', celebrating the young talent that has come into the sport and burnt brighter than all the others to win World Championships.

Before the Festival of Speed the Thursday is the Moving Motor Show. As the name suggests the latest models from the different manufactures take to the hill. This included the new F Type Jaguar, wrapped in camouflaged before it debut in September. The F Type will also take to the hill through out the weekend with its legendary forebears.

The car manufacturers setup their stands in the exhibitors area with (what looked like) the idea to out do each other, these temporary structures (just assembled for the show) are bigger than most car show rooms, mirror finished floors to huge screens showing the best each marquee had to offer. Nissan suspended a car from the side of wall with the public given the chance to scale the wall next to the car, to Land Rover setting up a mock car plant. The ideas and imagination of the designers and maybe the budget being the only limit. The stands would be open for the whole of the Festival.

On the Friday the Festival of Speed starts. In the paddock stood some of the worlds rarest cars, most of which would be out on the hill, the public able to get close to the cars and have a look inside what would of been the office of greats like Sir Stirling Moss and Sir Jacky Stewart, both of which are at the Festival over the weekend and taking some beautiful machinery up the hill.

This is also the 60th anniversary of Lotus. And the stunning sculptor at the front of Goodwood house is to celebrate the heritage of Lotus. "The idea is to show the lightness of construction, which is the engineering ethos of Lotus," says sculptor Gerry Judah, who returns (as he has for all the festivals) to design the centrepiece. Through out the Festival 40 cars made by Lotus or powered by Lotus engines also took to the hill. From the F1 cars, Lotus road race cars, Lotus Cortina and a rally winning Talbot Lotus. In the paddock a row of black and gold John Player Special Lotus's the numbers boosted with cars from Classic Team Lotus. Colin Chapmans son Clive, who is MD of Classic Team Lotus was present and it must of been a fantastic, or maybe odd feeling for him to see the huge Lotus stand with two modern F1 Lotus's stood up wheel to wheel rotating and the Gerry Judah sculptor with Lotus F1 cars on part of it. It's all a long way from the lock up in Hornsey where is all started for Colin Chapman.

Lotus has changed so much of the racing world and F1 in particular, from the 25 and the first fully stressed monocoque in F1, a car that took Jim Clarke to his first win in '62 and his first world championship in '63. To the 79 the ground effect car that took Mario Andretti and Lotus to world titles in '78. But for the Lotus 'twin-chassis' 88B it was so radical that it was banned before it raced. Colin Chapman and Lotus changed the world of F1 for ever.

Moving away from Lotus but still attracting lots of attention, are three different six-wheel F1 cars bought together for the first time. The three cars were all close to each other in the paddock, the Tyrell P34 that won the Swedish GP and 3rd in the '76 championship with Scheckter at the wheel. Williams FW08B built in '82 proved to be exceptionally fast during testing, but was never raced. Those two cars were static displays but the third car and attracting lots of attention was the March 2-4-0. This may of been a stillborn F1 project but over the weekend it did timed runs up the hill.

This year was the biggest Festival ever, and a new layout to the festival. Moving Motor Show, FoS-TECH on the cricket pitch, Goodwood Action Sports (GAS), Aviation Exhibition the Exhibition Area and the Forest Rally stage each of these could be an event on its own, let alone the action and demonstrations on the hill.

If you plan to come to next years 21st Festival of Speed, give yourself as much time and days as possible because, I have only just touched on the what you can see at what must be one of the worlds premier motor-sport events, after all it's called the Festival of Speed.

For the next Goodwood motor-sport event its a trip back in time for the Revival on September 14-16th.