Postcard from the 2016 Goodwood Festival of Speed

So here is our postcard from the 2016 Goodwood Festival of Speed. We gave 2015 a miss, so we were intrigued to see what differences there may be at the 2016 event.  We were up early on the Friday (the day we attended), intending to leave at 6am, but left nearer 6.30am.  Gates opened at 7am, and we arrived about 8am.  Thank goodness it was not raining as it had been the day before.  There were parts of the car parking and site that were very muddy, but it has to be said the organisers were doing a great job as we arrived of minimising any mud bath scenario.

Strangely we did not see one classic car, supercar or hypercar on our journey to Goodwood, which was a first ever.  We parked up and got into the event very quickly.  We walked through the F1 paddock then down to the main house.  The sculpture was as amazing as ever (below).   2016’s Goodwood Festival of Speed theme was ‘Full Throttle – the Endless Pursuit of Power’ and the Central Feature marque for 2016 was BMW, which celebrated its centenary in 2016.  What do you think?

Here is a very cool video (below) that we came across by Littlehampton Welding who were involved in the sculptures construction, amazing.

There is so much to do at Goodwood FoS, we hardly had any time to watch the cars going up the hill (doh!).  We spent a good 3-4 hours wandering through the paddocks checking out all the cars, a good 30 minutes gawping at the Cartier Style et Luxe Concours (a personal favourite), there is so much to see and do, you’ll never get everything covered in a day.  All our photos from the day can be seen on our Goodwood FoS photo album.A few of our favourite cars from the paddocks were the:

Benz 200HP ‘Blitzen Benz‘ (Built 1909)

TVR Trident Fissore Coupé (Built 1965)

McLaren F1 GTR (Built 1995)

McLaren MP4/2C (1986-specification)

Bugatti Chiron (Built 2016)

All the manufacturers we pulling out all the stops, but for us (you can tell my age) the best display had to go to Honda with their imitation Fisher Price Garage (below), super super cool, and we loved it.

There were the usual array of food and non-car related items, but I was very impressed by how much more stuff there was to do for families and young kids.  Very well done Goodwood FoS organisers and especially well done to Vauxhall whose family orientated play area was a great addition (with climbing walls, crazy golf through cars, football speed trap, and so much more).

My boy loves the GAS (Goodwood Action Sports) arena, which is all about Freestyle Motocross, Trials, BMX, & Mountain Bikes.  Here’s a video (below) which sums up what goes on there very nicely.  These people have balls of steel, and lots of broken bones I bet, still it’s great to watch.

We eventually made up to the Porsche display and off road section, and there was plenty to do there also, and watching the off roaders taking off was very cool, and if you donated some of you hard earned cash you could even be driven around the course in one.  It’s interactive experiences such as these that really are great to have at car shows like Goodwood and others, so the fans and passionate car people can get close up and personal and feel part of the action.

All in all Goodwood FoS 2016 was a cracker and has wetted my appetite not to miss next year.  I’m still yet to ever make it to the top of the hill to see the rally stage, well heck maybe next year.  Cannot wait, see you there.