Up at 5am today, to drive to Goodwood Festival of Speed. Instead of going down the day before and staying over night, I thought I'd try driving down the same morning. Left at 5.30am and met up with my brother about 10 miles out from goodwood, just after 8am. We only had one ticket for Car Park P (for sponsors guests), so we left his car and took mine to the show. As we got out of the car, it started to rain but, other than one short period of light rain, it remained dry and sunny all day.
Goodwood House and this year's Lotus themed statue.
Lotus themed statue.
Lotus themed statue.
You get so close to so many cars at Goodwood. All types, all ages and motorbikes too.
We started in the Super Car paddock. It is good to see that there was free and public Wi-Fi connectivity available at Goodwood this year. Despite this, my iPhone was nearly flat by lunchtime due to all the data being sent :-) After last year I bought myself an USB battery bank and charged my phone over lunch :-)
I was particular dissappointed not to be get a close look at the BAC Mono. when we arrived, it was under a cover :-( This really is a fantastic bit of engineering. I was also keen to have a look at the LCD/OLED display used on the steering wheel as I'm planning to do something like this in my next car (though not on the steering wheel).
Maybe I missed them but, I didn't see any Pagani cars or the Eagle Speedster at the show this year.
Going to copy this very cool design feature from the Renault Alpine concept.
I fell in love with this car last year at Goodwood. Don't know why but I just love the Alfa 8C.
After that we had a look at the brand stands on the other side of the bridge. The Lotus stand was just huge ...
Why take a picture of the Lotus Elise rear lamps? Because I'm thinking of using them on my my next car. Today was also a rummage in a very large potential parts bin for me :-) Does anyone know what these light units weigh please?
I also liked these really nice wheels on the Lotus Evora GTE but I guess they don't come in 13" diameter :-(
The Lotus Elan Sprint is tiny when compared to modern sports cars but, it is bigger than my Fury R1.
This is quite possibly my next family car. The Mazda Takeri looked stunning. It won't make production with these 20" wheels though!
It is basically the new Mazda 6, which I already own. It is the best car I've ever owned in terms of being fit for purpose.
Then we went into Goodwood House to have a look at the view from the balcony ...
A ring of Lotus car from the past ran around the statue.
Not sure who is in this car.
Lotus Europa (I think).
Jim Clarke watching over us.
And then to lunch ... The marquee behind the Goodwood House is just massive!
In the afternoon, we were introduced to Mark Ticehurst and Owen Mildenhall who are racing drivers currently competing in this 2.0-litre MX-5 GT race car, which weighs 1000kg and has 315bhp. They also gave us a quick guide over the car and some of the engineering and race preparation work done it. It started out as normal MX-5! This car was going up the course several times each day.
We had an amazingly close view of the F1 cars. Some of them were so loud, it really hurt my ears. And I'm used to loud cars!
This is an interesting video (not mine) by Andy Betts of the The Lotus Forums. I'd always wondered what happend to the cars wehen they get to the top of the hill:
The trip out from Goodwood was a bit slower. The bit back to my brother's car took nearly an hour but, at least we were stuck behind a Ferrari 458 and a McLaren MP4-12C for entertainment. Whilst the 458 edged gingerly down the dirt track from the car park, the McLaren owner over took him! Don't know what this says about the off road ability of these cars or the chip on the shoulder of the McLaren driver :-) I'd still buy the McLaren MP4-12C if I could afford it and had the garage space.
Another amazing day at Goodwood. This is my favourite motoring event in the UK. Next time, I'd love to spend the whole weekend there and take more time to see everything. The round trip was 315 miles and it was just so easy in my Mazda 6. It's a fantastic car for getting across country in comfort.
The new Evora 414E Range Extender Hybrid Electric Vehicle (REEV) has started its dynamic and durability testing at Hethel. This car was also at Goodwood this weekend. The headline torque figure is an impressive 1000 Nm (738 lbft).
The Evora 414E is powered by two electric motor packs driving the rear wheels through its Xtrac transmission with a battery pack that can be charged by the Lotus range extender engine or directly from mains electricity. The Lotus 3 cylinder range extender engine has been design protected to run on either gasoline or renewable bio alcohol fuels (methanol and ethanol). It drives an EVO electric generator which produces electrical energy to either charge the battery pack or power the EVO traction motors directly. In normal driving, the Evora 414E will run purely on electricity stored in the battery pack for up to 30 miles (48 km). With the Lotus range extender and the electric traction motors powering the vehicle through an Xtrac 1092 transmission, the Evora 414E is targeted to produce just 55 g of CO2 / km emissions on the Northern European Driving Cycle (NEDC). Should the driver require more performance, under hard acceleration, for example, the electricity will come from both the battery storage and the small range extender engine.
and charged my phone over lunch :-)
