Goodwood press day
Posted by Jamie Hibbard at 11:50AM on Thursday 10 April, 2008 0 Comments
Yesterday morning I headed down to Goodwood house to watch creative director Charlie Turner run his long-term test car, a Ford Mustang GT500, up the now legendary Goodwood hill.
The hill run is a key part of the yearly Goodwood Festival of Speed, and so yes, yesterday was what is commonly known as 'a PR stunt'. As is the way with these things, we were a bit sceptical of whether it would actually be any good, as 'PR stunts' can invariably be a bit, well, rubbish.
The scepticism didn't last long. We were left slack-jawed when we saw the array of cars - this was no ordinary publicity stunt. This was petrol-head nirvana.
This year's Festival theme is 'Hawthorn to Hamilton - Britain's Love Affair with World Motor Sport' and as such there were a genre spanning array of cars on display.
Bentley's Le Mans winning Speed 8, an awesome Ferrari 250 TR58 - that used to be run by Phil Hill and Mike Hawthorn and was about to be driven by the legendary Sir Stirling Moss - a first generation Nissan KPGC10 GT-R, a very loud 1960s Lola-Ford T92 IndyCar that Jackie Stewart used to drive, a 1990 Silkcut Jag XJR 12 and a new Nissan GT-R were all among those present. And we're promised even more at this year's event proper.
The only slight disappointment was that the McLaren MP4/22 on display was just a show-car version of Lewis Hamilton's 2007 runner, and the man himself - who I'm sure has more important things on his mind after last weekend's disappointing Bahrain Grand Prix - wasn't around either.
Yet his dad Anthony Hamilton was, and after Turner's run up the hill, Hamilton Snr poked his head in through the 'Stang's window to ask for a lift back down.
Of all the cars he could have ridden in, he picked Charlie's, which is testament to just how much attention the GT500 gets. Imagine what it's like being driven through town...
So if this press day was anything to go by, the event itself on July 11-13 should be a bally good show, as Lord March might say.
(And if you're interested, here's some really low-grade video from the start line. It'll give you an idea of what was going on though, and it doesn't sound too bad either.)
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