2018 Goodwood FOS

Fastest and the most exotic wheels

Wouldn’t it be spectacular to have an event, a festival that pays tribute to both old and modern machinery and celebrates speed? The Goodwood Festival of Speed (FOS) is just that, as the event has been celebrating racing and the art of speed since it was founded back in 1993. This year marks the event’s 25th anniversary and as always, it was held at the Goodwood Estate located in West Sussex, England and hosted by the Duke of Richmond. The Festival of Speed brought a bevy of supercars and race cars to the famous hill climb course along with a few firsts for this spectacular show of rare and extraordinary engineering marvels.

The main attraction of the FOS is always taken by a central display dedicated to a manufacturer or individual and is placed right in front of the Goodwood House. Sculptor Gerry Judah

has been the architect behind these spectacular creations since 1999. This year, Porsche is celebrating their 70 years of creating a glorious history of high-performance sports cars and race cars. To honour the milestone, the central display was created as a steel structure standing 52 metres tall. The structure balances six Porsches consisting of iconic names since the dawn of the brand.

The Porsche 935 from 1978 also known as “Moby Dick” because of its distinctive aerodynamics could reach speeds of up to 366kmph, developed 845bhp and finished 7 laps ahead of the second place vehicle in its first ever race.

The Porsche 962C from 1987 brought pioneering ground-effect aero that created a vacuum, holding the vehicle to the road surface and allowing it to achieve high cornering speeds, unheard of at the time.

There’s also the Porsche 804 Formula 1 car from 1962 which had a 1.5-litre, 180bhp engine capable of 270kmph. The 1974 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR Turbo 2.1 which weighed just 750kg, the Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 4x4 Paris Dakar type 953 from 1984 that achieved victory in the famous desert rally covering 14,000km and the 1988 Porsche 2708 Indycar.

The highlight though, is the famous 1.86km hill climb course and this year proved to be more exciting than ever as the cars finished the climb setting record times. Electric vehicles are surely the future of mobility and one particular car stood out at this year’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Volkswagen’s ID R Pike’s Peak clocked 43.86 seconds making it the first ever electric car to win the Festival of Speed shootout. The car was driven by Frenchman

Romain Dumas who won the Colorado, USA challenge as well as the Festival of Speed achievement. The second fastest car at the hill climb was the NIO EP9, an electric car again that holds the fastest lap record at the famous Nurburgring circuit in Germany. It clocked a quick and impressive 44.61 seconds at the FOS. Among the traditionally fuelled but hightech and high-performance supercars, the Aston Martin Vulcan AMR track car, the BAC Mono single seater, the Ford GT and many more presented a superb spectacle of speed.

There were a few world debuts at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed including the McLaren 600LT that’s capable of doing 0-96kmph in 2.9 seconds thanks to 590bhp from its turbo-charged V8 engine. Italian design firm had their take on the Nissan GT-R and debuted the GT-R50 celebrating 50 years of the iconic GT-R brand. This car will be produced in a limited run of 50 vehicles with each vehicle costing a cool 1 million USD. Another car that has been in the news for a long time and finally sees the light of day at the Goodwood Festival of Speed was a Toyota. Covered in camouflage, Toyota’s A90 aka the new Supra which makes a comeback with a front engined rear wheel drive format.

A host of exclusive Ferraris made an appearance at the hill climb as well like the hybrid V12 LaFerrari Aperta, the elusive FXX K Evo and the Ferrari 599XX Evo. Aston Martin presented the DBS Superleggera, Rapide AMR and V12 Vantage V600 among other cars like the Le Mans racing Vantage GTE.

Lamborghini showcased the Centenario Roadster doing a lap of the course. This car was made to commemorate the 100th birthday of the late Ferruccio Lam-

borghini, founder of the legendary supercar firm.

Some unusual runs were also witnessed at this year’s FOS, like the V8 engined Aston Martin Cygnet hatchback which makes its world debut at Goodwood. Renowned stunt driver Terry Grant set a world record for fastest two-wheeled mile using a Range Rover and a driverless car did the hill climb course too. Roborace’s Robocar claims to be the world’s first driverless electric race car and went up the hill autonomously.

And finally in yet another first at this year’s Festival of Speed, a young and enterprising Indian designer presented a concept car. Chunky Vazirani, founder of Vazirani Automotive, established the firm in 2015 to create the Shul. Claiming to have created India’s first hypercar, the Shul features a micro-turbine range extender with a light-weight battery pack. The turbine acts as a generator for the batteries while the sound from the turbine is also said to add to the sensory experience that the current crop of electric cars lack. The company will also work closely with the Force India Formula One team to further develop the Shul.

These were the cars that stood out this year as we round up the 2018 edition of the Goodwood Festival of Speed.