Goodwood Festival of Speed 2017 is set to take place on June 29th – July 2nd with a packed itinerary of displays and demonstrations of some of the fastest road and track vehicles in automotive history.
The first festival was held in 1993, making this the 25th annual gathering of petrolheads at Goodwood – and also the 70th anniversary of Ferrari’s founding in 1947.
As you might imagine, the two landmarks are being celebrated together, along with a lengthy list of other attractions at the upcoming event.
The Prancing Pony
Enzo Ferrari founded the luxury sports car manufacturer – famed for its iconic red cars, and for its yellow and black ‘prancing pony’ logo – 70 years ago, and to mark the anniversary, at least 70 Ferraris will be among the vehicles on show at Goodwood Festival of Speed.
About a third of these – at least 25 examples – will be single-seaters from the post-war Grand Prix years, with others to be seen in the Supercar Paddock and on the Goodwood hill climb track.
Puff the Magic Wagon
The Austin Maxi driven by Bron Burrell in the 1970 London to Mexico World Cup Rally is just three years short of celebrating its 50-year milestone, and will be one of the star attractions on the Forest Rally Stage of the Goodwood hill climb.
It’s already been featured in reports by the BBC this year, and is joined by the 1963 Citroen 2CV BiBip Dakar, which attempted the Dakar Rally ten years ago in 2007, but was forced to retire due to suspension failure in the fourth stage.
Drift Demons
Drift cornering is nothing new to motor racing, but is a relatively recent addition to the Goodwood Festival of Speed itinerary, with drift cars and their drivers featured in substantial number for the first time last year.
After receiving a warm reception, they have been upgraded to full participant status in their own event for 2017, with a contest to see who can drift the first corner of the Goodwood hill climb at the highest speed.
Contenders will race away from the start line and must be drifting by the time they reach the corner’s speed trap, and continue to drift across the finish line – expect plenty of tyre smoke and exhaust fumes.
Peak Performance
The last of our highlights – although by no means the end of the jam-packed Goodwood Festival of Speed itinerary – is the overall theme, ‘Peaks of Performance – Motorsport’s Game Changers’.
In a sense, this runs throughout the festival, with the Ferrari 330 P4 one of the ‘high watermarks of motorsport’ that also forms part of the 70th anniversary celebrations.
There will also be a 1.5-litre Delage 15 S8, Mercedes-Benz W125, 50cc Honda RC166, Lancia Delta S4, Benetton B193B, Penske PC23, Zakspeed Capri, and many, many more historic models – the list goes on and on across the weekend, honouring especially the vehicles that proved so unbeatable that motorsport rules were changed to make the rest of the field more competitive.
