luckyseven
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Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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Well, having just lost two days of my life to sorting out around 800 photos I thought I'd bring you my humble offerings from the Sunday of the Festival. In advance, I'd better say this is cut and pasted from my thread on another forum, so sorry if you've seen any similar pics or whatever elsewhere, but frankly life's too short for me to type up all this drivel and a zillion links again lol Just sorta fast forward through the passe bits, yeah? Is everybody sitting comfortably? Good, then I'll begin... The first thing you reach on arriving (after the mahooooosive car park...well, field) is the Moving Motorshow. Which is essentially a bit of a gimmick. It's basically a huge shed where manufacturers display their current models and a few choice classics and punters can book test drives in them throughout the day... for about ten yards each way. Generally it leaves me rather cold, partially cos modern cars leave me mostly unmoved and partially cos you get there first and want to get in and see the "real" cars so tend to breeze past without giving it your full attention. However... New Porsche 918 Spyder did hold the attention Not least because it's a Porsche that doesn't look like every other one since 1950 and it has got these rather natty little camera "mirrors" I'm sorry, but I'm here to tell you the new California is utterly fugly. It just is. Get over it. Blasphemous bastardisation of the name, could even be heresy I reckon Hahhhhhnda stand had a nice 1st gen Civic celebrating... errr I'm not sure actually, fifty years or something. Maybe This is a "deluxe", too, which presumably means you got a wing mirror with it New Toyota/Scooby crossdresser GT86 thing is actually quite funky, a bit like a mini LFA. If you squint. Unfortunately, every pic I took of it came out cack so you'll have to take my word for it. Here's a nice detail of the boxer/86 logo to make up for it BMWs are another marque that generally fail to move me much, but you'd have to be dead in the soul not to feel a slight tumescence in the prescence of one of these Can't be many cars that were obsolete almost before they turned a wheel and yet had such a profound effect on a companies' heritage and reputation If you leave the Motorshow gimmick and turn left instead of going straight over the bridge to the infield, you'd come to the Cathedral Paddock which holds about 40% of the proper entrants. One of the first things to meet the eye here (apart from the thick mud and storm clouds overhead lol) is the "fastest lorry in the world"; a 1929 "blower" Bentley, a 4.5 litre supercharged cad of a vehicle this is why you needed passengers in early road races, you needed someone to make sense of the random gauges for you lol I love the very gentlemanly clock, though, and the mileometer that counts down to Paris There weren't so many of the really vintage cars as some years, which is fine cos it's hard to get too excited about a wicker picnic hamper on pram wheels with a two-cylinder ditch pump engine hanging of the back. There were a few real old critters though. Here's an Era. The world's first genuine single-seat racing car, the straight-eight supercharged 1932 Alfa Tipo B As you'd perhaps expect, Alfa had some utterly gorgeous cars there, like this lovely pair of little GTAs One of only 40 1750 Giugario-styled GTA-ms ever built. Hard to look at the modern Giulia and not wonder why they don't just still make ones that look like this and the rather arresting 3000CM spyder one driven by Fangio Here's another old 'un, a 1914 Sunbeam Indiannapolis. This 4.9 litre straight six finished 4th in 1916. From the days when engines were made of brass and carburettors were made out of plumbing
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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Apologies for snippets of info shamlessly cribbed from the programme lol. Well worth the £12 hahaha It's a funny mix in the Cathedral paddock, the vintage cars rub shoulders with classes containing Group C, sportscars, modern GTs and even some classic rally cars like this bonkers '74 Lancia Stratos in the best Gaspers livery not sure why the different-length exhausts. Tuned lengths or parking accident? You decide Just a single year away was this lovely A110 Renault-Alpine which won the first manufacturer's rally title and Renault's new Alpine concept was alongside, built to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original car this thing's mental, a mid-mounted v6 turbo with an electronic clutch, sequential box, Koenigsegg-style doors and bonkers aero including this crazy rear exhaust/diffuser treatment sincerely hope it gets made without being watered down and sanitised. At least Renault do have a history of slightly mad road cars, like R5GTTs and v6 Meganes. Here's hoping... Not too much in the way of old Ferraris in the sportscar classes though this is probably worth a mention complete with a numberplate that'd probably cost more than any two cars from the public carpark but no matter how rare, old, and prestigious the car, it still has to be fettled using pliers and spanners. And even a hammer lol and whilst we're on sportscars, perhaps one of the purest and most iconic shapes ever the Ford Mk IV. Perhaps not as achingly pretty as the original GT40 but still gorgeous. This is the car that Dan Gurney won leMans in '67 in, the only all-American driver/car win. He invented the now-traditional celebration of the spraying of champagne during the victory presentation, apparently Here's the appeal of the FoS, not only can you get right up close and personal with the cars, but also the drivers if that's your bag. Here, Tarquin and Mungo share a wizard jape whilst waiting to take the GT40 up the Hill This looks stunning, the Maserati Tipo 151/3 from 1964 Although the beautiful "breadvan" styling was apparently unstable at speed, causing a fatal crash during leMans testing in '65 The Shelby Daytona Coupe recently the subject of a good documentary on BBC4, built by the world's fastest chicken farmer specifically to beat Ferrari in GT racing This '67 Mustang Trans-Am finished fourth at Daytona in 1968 behind the three Porsche 907s. It was famously cut out of the finish photo. Politics? and another American hoss, the later '68 Boss 302 Mustang
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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I sincerely hope it's my laptop making those reds look terrible rather than Photobucket dropping their resolution again :mad: Dang. Nope, it would appear it's Photobucket ruining my life. Again Shall we have a couple of arbitrary arty type pics then? We were quite lucky with the weather, it had peed down over night and there were some heavy sharp showers, but they cleared out late morning and it was good the rest of the day. It did rain when it rained though ...which brings us neatly to the concept of Jaaaaaaags, innit. There were loads of cool ones, as you'd expect, including some unusal American racers such as this E-type and bonkers wide XJS side exit FTmfW y0 The wonderful curves of the D-Type prototype not sure if these are the drivers names or instructions ...as in "straw bales or rostrum" lol and those sportscar/saloon jags segue neatly onto these; an array of the iconic Group C Jaguars XJs from their dominant period late '80s. Such an inspirational shape and colourscheme combination to those of us of an age nice to see they're not too precious about priceless artifacts like this too. Nothing more annoying when you've paid over 50 quid for an entrance ticket than seeing rows of cars shrouded in tarps So that brings us on to some of the other Group C cars (damn I'm good at this hahaha) such as the brave failure of the Toyota 90C-V which was blighted by poor reliability but very nearly won the last ever Group C race at leMans '94. This one wasn't running on the Hill.... reliability issues again? The Sauber Mercedes C9 that was designed to give young drivers a break in Group C racing, and brought on such minor names as Michael Schumacher to mention but one The slightly unusual (and excellently-named) Nimrod Aston Martin which showed promise but was hamstrung by financial woes (like most British things)
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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Can't really think of a good link from Group C to touring cars and saloons, so I'll start another post here and hope no-one notices lol. In my defense I've had four hours sleep after a night turn, see if you can do better Right then, this made me sad beacuse it appeared to be a madly wide-arched Mazda RX-7 FB . Which, indeed, is because it is ...but it's got a Cosworth engine. Fail. And the driver was a totally miserable fella who obviously didn't want to talk about it. Or indeed, talk. Shame so lets have a picture of a Cossie YB where it ought to be shall we? yeah, in a Sierra RS500. Pretty Stars and stripes Manta is, errrm, well. It's ahh... hmm Sticking with GM saloons, there were some insane Vauxhall Firenzes, the "Baby Bertha" running a 5-litre Holden V8 and some seriously wide bodywork side exit FT... etc etc and the "Old Nail", the original DTV (Dealer Team Vauxhall) legend that won over 60 races As well as this stunning Magnum The Zakspeed Capri is a bit of a mad thing bearing as it does almost no relation to a Capri at all lol This rather frightening turbo monster lump ended up in the Zakspeed F1 car plumbing looks a bit complex Rubbing shoulders in here were also some one-off monsters like Rod Millen's Pike's Peak-decimating Toyota Tacoma (and I believe, outright record holder on the Goodwood hillclimb). It's essentially nothing like any real Toyota, but more like a spaceframed pickup with a cover and a stupidly powerful turbo engine wedged inthe back and one-off carbon bodywork The driver has to drop in through a tiny hatch in the roof which is the only way to access the minute cockpit Side exit...ahhh, you know the drill
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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I was quite glad we visited the Cathedral paddock first because later in the day the inestimable Mr Millen decided to rather sternly stuff it into the bales near the top of the Hill following a rather scary tankslapper. Ooops. Broke The endurance racers at the Festival were scattered all over the place, presumably to stay near their teams or crew, so in the corner under the trees was one of the few competition Mazdas at the FoS a turbo 2-litre sequential boxed MX-5. Call me a hairdresser's motor now, would ya? ...and a full GT-1 edition GTR35 which looked hard as a coffin nail, and I love the wing vents. Slight offset fail though lol So leaving the green shade and damp of the tree-lined Cathedral paddock behind we wend our way out between laurel hedges and find ourselves in the Supercar Paddock, the place where everyone becomes five years old again. First thing to greet our eyes is a wet Datsun followed shortly by a 300-grand wet Toyota. Who ever would have thought I've not seen an LFA in this royal blue before and it's a nice enough colour, but does hide the curves of the car somewhat. The white ones I've seen before make the most of the styling, and tbh if it was my 300k I'd want a bit more shock and awe for my shekels zing! The Zagato-styled Alfa Romeo TZ3 looks funky enough from the front, complete with Alfa trademark grille and Mazda RX-7 copied double bubble roof and it has loads of nice detai touches and lovely heritage-friendly teledial wheels but by Christ it all goes horribly wrong when you get round the back and while we're hanging around the back end... the new McLaren (that's so boringly named I can't even remember it or be bothered to look it up, it's some random letters and numbers) manages to make the wrong end of several thousands of pounds and several hundreds of horsepowers look... well really underwhelming tbh. I want to love this car but I just can't. There's no love in it, it's all a technical drawing project and it seriously needs some visceral vavooom. I do like the LED strip lights that blend into the strakes of the diffuser vanes, but that's a sad indictment if that's the nicest thing I can find to say ...unlike the Spyker C8 Aileron Spyder which is just utterly drug-induced madness from any angle and has a far cooler logo too Plenty of carbon goodness and aero righteousness festooning the bum of the new Evora GTE
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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Lamborghini Aventador looks...well, looks like every other Lambo since the Diablo, really. Not that's necessarily a bad thing Dunno if it's me going weird but maybe it's the angle or whatever but every time I look at this pic it reminds me of a ...*ahem* lady garden Brakes bigger diameter than the wheels on my FD California (again) but I've already said it's borkingly ugly so I didn't take any pics of it. Here's one of the engine, if you must The Camaro SS would get attention in any other scenario but sorta blends into the background a bit in this company Ginetta G60 looked excellent in gunmetal grey, nicely understated and let the lovely shape do the talking rather than shouting about it I like this colour a lot Speaking of colour, how about this for an idea? The eye-wateringly expensive Noble M600 finished in "raw" coloured carbon ...complete with colour swatches for you to peruse and choose your own shade of carbon Have to say, the quality is flawless, must take someone hours to lay up the weave so immaculately. Especially when you see the wobbly, flawed, wrinkled tat full of air bubblesthat aftermarket companies often pass off on carbon goods Maserati Granturismo Sport looks lovely in white, and sounds even better than it looks Koenigseggs always grab the attention, again seeming to suit white really well ...and again, carbon ceramic brakes bigger than my FD wheels lol ...mind you, even the Audi R8 can boast that. I guess it's that cocks actually own and drive these and you see them on the road every so often I kinda get out of the idea of them being a supercar, but I suppose it is essentially a Lamborghini in a TT fat suit Ruf CTR3 Sport Porsche thing looks ace in orange and carbon Wiesmann GT MF5 is... distinctive. Sorta Morgan meets Gumpert. Cute li'l lizard emblem is sweet though Moar to come, got to nip out and do some real life stuff for a min
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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Righty ho, there's no avoiding the elephant in the room any longer. This; Can you tell what it is yet, lol? No? Here's another hint then Yeah, you got it ages ago, well done. Clever, aren't you? It's the uncomfortably-named new Pagani, the Huarya Now, I've a major issue with this car, and not just the name which sounds like someone dry retching after a night on the Bacardi as you can see,every single part is styled and designed and lovely, even the mirrors are organic leaf-like objets d'art. There's a carbon Pagani logo for everything, even the windscreen wiper The attention to detail is second-to none and the same mania for detail extends to the interior, which is pure shock and awe although not an especially calm place to spend time, I suspect. Trying to pick the relevant information out of these hectic clocks whilst controlling a 200mph+ behemoth probably isn't easily done leather "carpets" probably take a bit of looking after too lol but by God there are lovely touches everywhere you look, like the "floating" gear assembly with gorgeously engineered linkages on show So, what's my problem, you ask? Every single part of the car taken in isolation is heart-stoppingly wonderful and of the highest quality, what could possibly put its fly in the custard? Well, quite simply my problem is this; How, when everything in isolation is so beautiful, HOW THE HELL DID THEY MAKE THE OVERALL CAR LOOK SO GOPPINGLY, HIDEOUSLY, WRETCHEDLY, FOULLY UGLY?Jesus wept, it's disgusting
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
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Club RR Member Number: 45
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The other mega-million apex predator supercar of course is the Veyron Of which there were only two this year. They spent much of the morning under covers until the rain cleared. Which I think is a total p***take, myself. Telling me someone who buys a £1million car can't afford to pay a flunky to clean it? Whereas the punters who've paid fifty quid minimum for an entrance ticket expect to see the cars, not a bloody logo on a cover. And that fifty quid presumably represents quite a percentage of their disposable income in some cases. Yep, it's another political rant, but why would some rich **** bring their car along to show it and then not show it? Anyway, once the covers came off they were needless to say, rammed with people trying to see so hard to photograph. I have to say, Veyrons don't do it for me anyway, beyond the amazing techincal achievement they represent. I find the actual cars just rather vulgar, overblown Audis and they seem to be owned by fools who need to over-egg the pudding by chrome-wrapping them or painting them in digusting paintschemes like this one. I mean, Max Power wheelstyle, anyone? WTF? Which is a shame really, but I guess the stigma is similar to all those red-brace owned Porsches of the 80's, you can't help but feel they're bought by people who want to have them because of what they say about them, rather than the car as what it is in its own right. Sad Right, enough class war. Leaving the supercar paddock behind we wander out onto the lawn before Goodwood House itself, and the Cartier Style et Luxe concourse d'elegance display. Before that, though, there's the small matter of Chris Evans' selection of Ferraris. Every year he provides a load of his private collection and auctions a ride up the hill in them for charity throughout the day. Which is nice of him and to be fair, it's hardly a shabby set of motors The F40 probably gets the lions' share of the looks perhaps not surprisingly. This is for me the acme of Ferrari development, all other since have just been... fashion. One of the few things I agree with Clarkson on lol but this represents purity. It's a car made to go fast. The end. If it doesn't contribute to going fast, then it isn't on the car. All except weight, which does contribute to going fast by not being on the car lol Beastly thing. Ugly but in a beautiful way. Form following function, as it should be but still enough flair and detail to make it look great but for me my favourite of Evans' cars (no California this year) and probably my favourite Ferrari evar ...is the GTO I guess it's my time of life, but this is the Matchbox car I needed as a kid, this is how all Fezzas should look. In my head, anyway perfect from any angle Here my man Ada illustrates neatly the problem with the FoS...by God it's hard to get the picture you want. There are so many people you have to be well fast and hope it comes out or well patient and time your shot perfectly. Either way you stand a good chance several shots will be wrecked by proletarian fools blundering right through it at exactly the wrong moment. Very frustrating, but also immensley satisfying when you get it. I hope you understand how much we've sufferd for our art to bring you these pics lol
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
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Right then, we meander onto Lord March's lawn and mingle with the cars of the Style et Luxe. Every year has a theme, and rather disappointingly this years' was the Queens Jubilee. Boooo! Y'know, I've nuttin against the Queen, I've like got all her stamps and that and so long as she doesn't bother me I won't bother her, but as to her cars, well. Let's be honest, she's got rubbish taste and not just in hats. Sadly, this meant the concourse d'elegance was stuffed with gargantuan limousines and random cars she might have actually looked at once. fair to say, it left me mostly unmoved. But as you loyal roving reporter it's my job to try and file as full and frank a report as possible so I'll try to pick some of the bones out for y'all. When I say most of the cars were anonymous giant limos like this Humber Super Snipe maybe you'll understand the problem but even dull cars like this have nice touches if you look closely enough ..but Jesus, there was an Austin Princess Van den Plas, FFS. What the hell can you do with that? Here's a nice jaguarrrr instead Probably the most interesting cars were the ones Her Maj had used for state visits to other countries, such as this Citroen SM Cab (like, yeah, why not give her the Maserati-engined one!?) which like all the best Citroens is pure bonkers art deco madness inside It's all about the details, baby Utterly mahoosive Mercedes went on for about two weeks. You could die from exhaustion just walking round it And if you like them big it don't get much more gargantuan than the presumably ironically named Lincoln "Cosmopolitan" which was anything but it has the most apposite appelation "bubbletop" appended to its name. Like, no kidding It gave me an Ada a chuckle doing "back and to the left" jokes which earned some disapproving looks. People ought to have a sense of humour about Presidential assassination in this day and age of legitimised "regime change". Murder seems an acceptable method of state succession now. Or is that only when "we" do it? It even had big seachlights with interior handles for aim. Awesome. Clock goes up to mad big numbers, surely the car doesn't. It would create collapsars in its wake with the mass distortion effect of getting something so big to move that fast. The only other thing nearby that weighs as much and moves so quick is the Moon of course it wouldn't be a Jet Age Yank car without an utterly innapropriate jet emblem lol but to be fair, for all its comedic oversize Yank bluster, it was an awesome thing with top attention to detail and speaking of detail, the all-alloy Roller showed some British bling bling and even rocked leather-covered bumpers. Like, dat is pure ghetto, blud, innit imagine being Her Maj's poor coachman who had to polish this bloody lot Nice horn
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
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Whilst we're on about Rollers, there were a few variations on the good ol Spirit of Ecstasy. The old favourite we all know and love... ...a rather odd signals mascot version. Maybe the Queen's favourite Beatles album was Help? ...and probably my favourite was the kneeling one ...just cos it's subtle and different whilst still instantly recognisable. I'd have missed it completely if Ada hadn't pointed her out to me Of course, there were also Royal warrants and pennants a-plenty. Here's one against a typical English summer sky lol One of the more interesting features was a display of Charlie boy's child's toy cars. No plastic push-along rubbish for the Ear to the Throne. These are spot-on mini replicas of Astons and the like. Maybe I'm perverse (OK, I am perverse) but my favourite out of all was the Queens' estate Vauxhall Cresta Friary. probably because it reeks of old skool cool and it's such a wonderfully bizarre and incongruous thing for a Queen to have owned. Presumably Philleeeep used it when he was out machine-gunning any wildlife that moved out on the estates
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
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Club RR Member Number: 45
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So that was pretty much the Style et Luxe dealt with. Some impressive cars, no doubt, but compared to the unique and weird concepts and stuff that's normally there most years I feel it was a missed opportunity really. Another spectacle that generally leaves me unmoved is Formula 1, moving from the sublime tothe ridiculous. As a race series it just bores me. The reasons for this are many, and are frankly too tedious in themselves to discuss here again. Rather like the Huarya (vom) if you take the details in isolation though, the cars themselves are phenomenal... I've no clue whether that nose wing really needs about fifteen different layers and whether it actually makes it any more aerodynamically efficient than a single one would, but who cares when it's so mad and downright fascinating. Modern F1 cars are something I could look at for ages, and did. It's only a shame the racing lets them down Who wouldn't have suspension made from carbon fibre if they could? I know I would I have to be honest though, I'm just too Meh about F1 to fight my way through the masses and try to take any meaningful pics. So tough, there aren't any more. You can have some moving ones if you want Apparently this grey one would normally be driven by Button or that irritating little smack-mouthed child Hamilton but presumably the FoS didn't pay enough for them to fill up their off-shore taxfree bank accounts sufficiently so it was some third-string fella called Turvey. Not Kevin from the Comic Strip though but fair play to Mr Turvey ( has to be read in a Brummie accent) he didn't mind giving it a bit of Larry Good lad! I'm afraid that's it for my modern F1 coverage, my interest in it stopped somehwere in the early 90s I'm afraid
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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Moving up the hill from the sculpture display we come to the main paddock where the other half of the entrants reside. This is where the two-wheeled exhibits are. Bikes are my first love, but I realise not everyone feels the same so I'll keep this bit fairly brief. Ish. If you don't like it, tough, lol How about this to whet your appetite? Not only one of the rarest bikes ever built, but quite likely one of the rarest vehicles of any sort in the entire FoS. The legendary V8 MotoGuzzi. One of only two survivng, and I believe, the only running example These were built to obliterate all on the Isle of Man TT and proved fallible but fast. They revved to a mere 13000rpm and had a top speed of 178mph. In 1955! Never again will we see their like, an across the frame V8 built like a Swiss watch. Awesome This is what valvegear looks like. You can tell because nearly the entire assembly is outside the head on this ancient V-twin Guzzi Ridden by legend and museum owner Sammy Miller, who still cares enough to not just cane the bike up the Hill but to wipe it down personally afterwards. Imagine Lewis Bloody Hamilton getting out the chamois and polishing up his F1 car after finishing Monaco? ...likewise John Surtees, living legend, the only man ever to win the top series of motocycle and car GPs. the only man who ever will, for that matter. And even at eighty-whatever still pushes his own bikes around the paddock and lumps them up on the stand himself ...and at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, the electric Saietta Brave design, looks like a water buffalo having an alergic reaction to something. Weird On the subject of white elephants, the mad two-stroke Honda powered hub-centre steered Elf GP bikes. engineering insanity simply because they could. This is the sort of thing rules stifle and kill The last four-stroke to win the championship before the two-stroke era, Phil Read's 1974 Fire Engine MV Agusta the brave failure of the Foggy Petronas FP1, built to bring a new direction to Superbike racing but hamstrung by budget and build problems Once upon a time any bike park would have at least one Micron exhaust in it, but now it's just one more British firm that's only a memory Termignoni does sound more exotic, I suppose A quick look at Valentino Rossi's really quite bad but undeniably amazing Desmoseidici GP racer. This is probably the bike in the modern era that's ended(ing) more careers than any other... A bike you don't so much ride as just cling on to. Even Vale's cartoon tends to imply he doesn't feel 100% part of the experience Not sure what the mesh is for, can't see anything being mad or deaf enough to want to go in there 102 RON. Fruity
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
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Club RR Member Number: 45
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Some more iconic two-wheelers; "King" Kenny Roberts' OW31 500 2T Yamaha, in the best livery evar (nearly), the yellow Yamaha America Speedblock. Real mens' bikes have four separate spannies with stingers, y'know Foggy's last (of four) WSB championship-winning Ducati 916 (996 variant). Good job Ducati aren't still sponsored by NatWest, I guess they'd be waiting a long time for the cheques to clear... Niall Mackenzie's last (of three) BSB championship-winning Yamaha YZF750 Boost bike. I had a YZF 750 and it's one of the biggest regrets of my life trading it for a FireBlade. Which was awful, hateful bike. The YZF was the best road bike I've ever had. Some fella bought it from the shop and then cuaght a tankslapper on a cat's eye and smashed it into a tree, killing himself and the bike two weeks after I traded it in. Gutted Aaron Slight's WSB RC45 Honda. One of the best bikes never to fulfill it's potential, it took the mercurial talent and outright weirdness of John Kocinski to finally give Honda the WSB title they so desparately wanted from this bike. Even Fogarty couldn't make it win the championship, though he forced it to win races. Slighty was one of WSBs unsung heroes, always plodding away on bikes that gave away weight and power advantages to the twins, never quite getting the break his talent and stoicism deserved here's the man himself, one of New Zealand's best exports Beuatiful HRC loveliness all over the thing. I don't especially love Hondas, their corporate racing ethos and I don't especially bond with their bikes but some of them like the RC30 and 45, the NRs and so on, just have that special something that gets the hairs ont he back of your neck up Here's a change of pace, the Irving Vincent remanufactured Vinnies. The fella bought out the patents for the legendary Vincent V-twin engines and now makes these in his homeland Australia to modern manufacturing tolerances and on the best chassis components available. The Black Shadow was the first genuine superbike, a true 150mph bollide, and these give it a modern edge that makes it truly spectacular Shame the man himself is so unapproachable, though. I've seldom met someone so surly, unengaging and downright miserable. Maybe he's bitter about going through life called "Irving"... none of which should detract from the quality of the product though, which is excellent. Even shoehorned one into a sidecar outfit
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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OK, that's enough bikes, I can see your eyes starting to glaze over there. The top paddock holds as much of a mix as the Cathedral, from old and modern F1 cars to modern edurance racers, rally cars, sportcscars, etc. In now especial order of importance lets go on a quick whistle-stop tour shall we? In keeping with the "featured marque" of this years' FoS there was a huge marquee stuffed with the beautiful black and gold of Lotus Just about all of these most evocative of racers was represented I dunno why it should be that race cars always look their best when they're sponsored by fags or booze. Maybe it's that redolence of an era of larger than life characters, playboy lifestyles and a simpler time. Lotus have certainly had some Names to help adorn their livery with over the years as well to say nothing of that legendary Ford Cosworth DFV stressed-member v8 hanging out the back and more than their fair share of innovative aerodynamic aids One of the strong attractions of the FoS is that it's one of few places you can get up close to iconic one-off cars and actually spend time looking and learning, actually seeing the designers' thought proceses in evolution. Such as the inboard brake discs to reduce the unsprung weight penalty of wheel-mounting them. With their nifty little cooling shrouds here on Jacky Ickxs' 72E and fully open finger-slicers on the insanely complicated electronic-clutch 76 Got an unused fraction of bodywork going to waste? Just stick an oil cooler in the nose cone then. Get everything doing two jobs More iconic colours and wonderful patination on the four-wheel drive Indy 500 "STP Special" and it wasn't all puredbreed single seater Lotussiises. errrr Lotards? errr... Racing Europa "breadvan" proving that TOMs didn't patent the idea of daft intake snorkels on MR2s Lotus Cortina. That is all and while we're admiring the Lotus range, there's always something going on. You never know when a priceless v12 Ferrari 312/68 might potter past, exhaust system as complex as the intestines of a cow ...or a racing Zonda. Hard to see how Pagani could get it so wrong following this up with the sickeningly ugly Huarya (vom) There were a smattering of the bonkers CanAm cars around, too. The intake noise of this McLaren Chevy nearly outshone its exhaust some random rally giants squeezed in amongst the sportscars. Fire up the Quattro
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Amazing (and massive) set of pictures, some super-cool stuff there. I'm with you on the ugliness of the California, the blandness of the MP4-12C and the visual disaster that is the Huayra, but please do not EVER accuse Zagato of ripping off the freakin' Mazda RX-7! They've been doing double-bubble roofs since 1953...
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
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Club RR Member Number: 45
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Some Silver Arrows greats such as this one-piece body 300SL where the gullwings didn't even reach into the sill. Even much more harder to access than the "ordinary" version! Spider version looks even more fantastic, if anything. and of course the beauty of being an open-top with mad high sills is you can always just stick the exhaust out through them W125 from 1937 This straight-eight supercharged beast developed 600bhp. Bears repeating, doesn't it? 600bhp in 1937. On spoked wheels, bicycle tyres and drum brakes. Hard men drove these. And we think we're in a golden age of motorsport, imagine how hard it was to even manufacture a straight-eight crank that would hold together back in the 30s! Sometimes I think we know nothing except arrogance engine turned dash panel looks nice for no good reason other than they could, I guess Some more examples of the diversity of the past; the March Cosworth 761 which provided a rather leftfield version of the concept of four-wheel drive And of course the Elf-Tyrell P34 which went the opposite end and answered a question no-one had ever really asked a sense of humour is a nice bonus, too. Luigi, he follow only the Ferrari Endurance racers past and present, all different classes. The Gazoo LFA Beastly Aston DBR in another iconic livery errrr... no flies on us Achingly beautiful leMans winning Bentley Speed 8 Kinda like an F1 car with a roof and then nailed to a carbon fibre table The snappily-named Audi R18 eTron Quattro, adding the first hybrid to win leMans to Audis other plaudits such as first diseasel to win No surprise Toyota are spending a few quid trying to prove hybrids really are the way of the future, too. The TS030HV-R. Damn, they give these things names that just trip offthe tongue, don't they! Bit quicker than the average Prius. It appears that silly Japanese cuddly mascots aren't the sole province of McDonalds car park cruisers, too
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
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Club RR Member Number: 45
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Right, we've about exhausted the paddocks now. But of course, the FoS being what it is we haven't even made it over to the infield yet. Bloody thing's enormous! The infield holds the manufacturers' stands and hundreds of trade stalls. Here's a quick whizz round some of the highlights... This ratrod was just parked outside some random Goodwood Shop tent. Not really sure why or what it was about, but it does look mighty fine Quite an unusual thing I'd have thought, cos despite it being Ford gear it seems to have a Lincoln lump in it. The Mazda stand consistently seems to be one of the more underwhelming ones, though maybe that's simply because I'm partisan and always expect more. This year it was pretty feeble, though. A couple of MX-5s, some new anonymous soft-roader just like all the others and the Takeri concept thing, which looks slightly funky with some styling cues fromt he Furai and its brethren... but overall just looks like an Audi with different lights ...or maybe a BMW? Anyway, something pretty dull. It was clearly just a total mock-up thrown together, if you looked closely you noticed the brake calipers that looked like impressive eight-pots or something from a distance were just fake plastic covers and so on. Very underwhelming the one real feature of interest were the camera mirrors. Which I'm betting won't see production.... As always, no mention whatsoever of rotary engines (last year as the anniversary of the leMans win was the only year the Mazda stand's had any reference to the glorious past of the rotary). Here's Ada proving why MX-5s are definitely not built for the above-average in height In contrast, just over the way the Toyota stand showed how it should be done, with rather nice and knowledgeable young ladies to talk to you about the new GT86, a display of motorsport heritage out front, and these rather top motors inside; this one's really rather gorgeous shame about the bloody railing that made it impossible to get a decent photo lol Like many top J cars though, they sorta never knew quite when to stop fiddling when they got round to the back certainly compared to the straightforward detail at the other end The Lotus stand was massive, as Lotus seem to have taken over the world lately. This Elan looked nice in lemon yellow, and those of us at that funny time in life will no doubt be thinking of Diana Rigg in the Avengers at this point.... No? Just me then Lotus endurance racer thing. Is there any pie they don't have a finger in? Jagaur stand was perhaps most notable for having the one-time contender for fastest car in the world title in the front Such daft styling it was out of date before it was launched..which oddly means it's never seemed to go out of date. Weird
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
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Club RR Member Number: 45
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The Harley-Davidson stand had some mighty impressive custom bikes as well as new models, and the rather odd feature of being able to pick up and play a new Gibson Les Paul should you feel so inspired. Needless to say Ada did Shame it was out of tune and the electronics for the pickup meant you couldn't tune it up. Doh! Still, the bikes were nice Fat! Nice to see metalflake and gold leaf have never quite gone out of fashion. Nice tooling on the leather saddle too and nothing tops a decent pneumatic cartoon laydee between your legs The BMW stand had peoples like Murray Walker and Tiff Needel doing sorta talks to the crowd over a PA. But it also had a chrome M3 and a gold 6 series so we didn't hang around lol This being Goodwood even the trade stands are mind-blowing. I know people pay ridiculous money for certain numberplates, but there's clearly more money in it than I thought. The stand selling registrations used just one car to advertise their services; but it was quite an expensive car! Some stands used more traditional eye-candy to woo in the punters. This is the nice young lady from the Crazy Horse custom motorbike stand. I never even noticed she had legs till Hannah pointed it out later, I only meant to take a pic of her very glamorous welies. Honest Of course, some stands let their product do all the talking. If, for example, you should be the proud owner of a 458 Italia and find yoursef in need of a ful titanium exhaust system complete with all valvery and plumbing to liberate a few more prancing horses, you'd have found it hard to bypassthe Akrapovic stand... ...I remember when they were just Skorpion knocking out straight tubes for BSB bikes lol. And of course there were other manufacturers catering for those stuck with a boring old v12...
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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You could, of course, buy an entire car should you so wish, though how you'd get it home in your handbag was presumably another issue T-Bird yours for a fiver under 17 grand, sir Bill Shepherd Mustang had their usual mix of modern and ancient Beautiful colour. Wild Cherry or something IIRC Not all the trade stands sold unaffordable stuff though (Gulf logo T-shirt sir? Certainly, that'll be £44 to you. 44-smegging-quid! 'koff). Lady H's natty new hat was a bargain at only a tenner! And of course, being Goodwood, no-one would be content with just the two dimensions of stuff being on the ground. There had to be a third dimension too. The Typhoon Eurofighter popped by to scare some seagulls Awesome thing, utterly astonishing. Pulling some -9G manouvres at low level. And you thought your car cornered hard... Only tiny niggles are not enough toilets, massively crowded (which is only to be expected) and food is stupidly expensive, like £5 for chips expensive. But at least it was edible, which is unlike the overpriced filth you get at places like the Pod. Queues for everything, especially ice cream lol. Ada needs to shrink or Miss Tracy needs to grow, but I suspect it's too late for both of them And that's it. If that's all I can find to grumble about, it must be a very top day out indeed. Which it is, the FoS is the top day out in the show calendar, simply the hugest, most diverse, most expensive, most astounding show in the world. I eneded the day with sore feet and sunbrun, despite the showers. If you spend the entire day walking around looking at priceless motoring artifacts, though, a word of caution. You will end up looking like this... Right, thanks for looking in. I'm spent. Now go away
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