80 years ago the hill climb was invented at Goodwood house and today the Festival is as popular as never
before selling out year by year on three days with an additional preview day of the moving motor show giving
the numerous manufacturers the opportunity to drive their potential clients up the hill in the latest models of
their programme. Ranging from ordinary station wagons to the ultra-expensive Supercars the visitors can have
a closer look in a complete city of two story houses set up at large expenses in the infield. During the
Thursday also the actual hill climb cars are set up in the paddocks and although they are not moving one
could have a first look at what to see on the weekend. Beside numerous fixed groups like the pre-war titans of
the long distance and GP series, Formula cars from the past and the present, bikes, rally and the latest
endurance racers every year sees a few special themes for certain jubilees and anniversaries.
Most prominent was this year’s centenary display of BMW who also had the honor of featuring the main
attraction with the annual sculpture in front of Goodwood House. Originally founded as an engine supplier for
the aviation as seen in the marque logo of the prop in the blue sky BMW soon turned into building road and
race models both on two and four wheels. The first international success one four wheels came in the late
1930s when the 328 was introduced dominating the popular 2-litre class of this era right from the beginning.
With the success at the Mille Miglia in 1940 with the Touring bodied cars BMW finally arrived in the
international elite and the sportive image of the marque lives on to the present day. One of the MM spiders
was on display together with two successful racers in the GP and Le Mans series high above the ceiling of
Goodwood house. After building the legendary 507 BMW entered the touring car scene with a lot of success,
both with the 1800, 2002 and later the 320 and M3. In the US the 3.0 CSL “Batmobile” was very successful in
Sebring and Daytona giving BMW a boost in popularity. After initiating the Pro-Car series with the M1 BMW
finally entered F1 as engine supplier to the Brabham team of Bernie Ecclestone. In 1982 the Brabham BT50
was the first of the BMW powered cars winning a GP for BMW after problems at the beginning of the season,
just one year later the BT52 should become the first turbocharged F1 car to win the championship for Nelson
Piquet. BMW went on to race with Brabham until 1987 and Bernie Ecclestone brought one example of each
year to Goodwood although just BMWs own BT52 was ready to drive. More than a decade later BMW also
achieved the overall victory at Le Mans with the V12 in one of the most dramatic races of it era. This year saw
many factory entries ranging from the Toyota GT-One, the BMW, Audis first attempts and the Mercedes CLR
that flew of the track in the hands of Perter Dumbreck. After winning LM BMW again succeeded as engine
supplier for the McLaren F1 GTR, today BMW again is very active in touring cars.
Half the age of BMW is the legendary Ford GT40. It is very well known that Ford tried to win over Ferrari at the
most famous race in Le Mans after the takeover of Ferrari was cancelled late minute by Enzo Ferrari. With full
force the GT40 was developed to compete with the Ferrari 330 Prototypes and it took until 1966 when the
bigger GT40 MKII took a full podium at La Sarthe. Ford returned in 1967 with an all new MKIV built in the US
rather than the MKI/II developed in the UK to get the first all American victory. After the displacement was
reduced to 5 litre the mighty big block was out of competition but the Wyer entered Gulf-livered MKI in the
hands if Pedro Rodriguez/Lucien Bianchi and Jacky Ickx/Jackie Oliver went on to win to further editions. The
Ford ended the long series of victories of Ferrari who is waiting to the present day for another overall victory at
La Sarthe.
Ten year later was the next significant date that was celebrated at this year’s FoS, the sole F1 Championship
of James Hunt. Hunt entered the F1 as the rock star of the scene living a life to the fullest as one might
expect from a driver of this era. Not just Hunt but the full team Hesketh of the wealthy British nobleman was
known for extensive parties but still in 1975 Hunt won his first race in the Hesketh in a first battle with Nikki
Lauda proving that he was not only for the party in F1. In 1976 finally Hunt won the F1 title in a season that
was set a monument with the movie “Rush”. Although the movie take some dramaturgy from the rivalry of
Lauda and Hunt they both considered themselves as friends and Lauda later said that he actually regretted
that the duels ended after the WDC as Hunt seemed to lose motivation and after two more seasons at
McLaren and a final at Wolf Hunt quit F1 in 1979. Nevertheless Hunt is still one of the most popular figures in
F1 as he epitomizes a character that is long gone in a time of current F1 media and corporate drivers.
Further jubilees were 50 years of Can-Am bringing some of the most powerful machines to the hill including
the Porsche 917/30. A few debuts could be seen at the hill as well, for the first time the Brawn-GP was seen
in action driven by BBC/Sky F1 commentator and former F1 driver Martin Brundle. Also for the first time a
hybrid powered F1 car took the hill with the 2014 Mercedes W05 driven by local hero Lewis Hamilton and
team mate Nico Rosberg. As the ban of testing prohibits running the current and last year’s car this was the
first time a car of the new era was allowed to take the hill making an interesting comparison with the earlier
V8 of the 2010 Ferrari F10 with a very different sound.
Again there were a lot of very interesting cars including the very popular Supercar run of modern Supercars on
all three days. After pouring rain on Saturday we had the chance to visit a dry Sunday coming from various
other events on the continent making it a short trip to West Sussex. Nevertheless we hope that we can give
an impression of the cars running that day and as several cars did not make it up the hill the last day this is
even more a reason to visit the FoS for more than one day to get as much action as possible. Hopefully next
year the calendar will allow a full coverage of the weekend in the same quality as in previous years.
Report & Images ... Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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