Jaguars at the Goodwood Festival of Speed

16 Aug 2015 4:21 PM | Deleted user

By Mike Ferring

The Goodwood Festival of Speed is one of the world's premier car-nut events, a carnival of fantastic cars and people spread over the oh-so-gorgeous lawn of Lord March near Chichester, England.

It's actually several events happening simultaneously and drawing a crowd of more than 150,000 over four days. At the top of the hill it's World Rally through the woods. Next section down the hill, off-road trucks bounding over hills. Then the paddock of some of the greatest race cars that ever competed. A concours d'elegance with rare and beautiful cars. An "X-Games" style pit for flips and tricks. Manufacturers' pavilions with new cars and car "experiences." The centerpiece is the run just over a mile up the hill, a sort of hill climb to show off those great cars and great drivers (including Stirling Moss, Jackie Stewart, Nico Rosberg, Jensen Button, Kimi Raikkonen, Derek Bell, and motorcycle champions Valentino Rossi and Giacomo Augostini. Among others.)

Maryellen and I dove deep into the Festival this year, spending three days poking into every corner of the place. When she saw the "Jaguar Experience," she decided to wait some two hours to take a ride with a professional driver in an F-Type, doing smoking laps around a tiny oval. Giggle time.

Jaguar was well represented, not just with new cars, but with historic ones. A couple D-Types ran the hill. An XK220 appeared in the concours, but this was a one-off with a V-12 engine, as the car was originally planned to use.

Here are a bunch of pictures I took of the event, including a series with Maryellen at the Jaguar Experience (which used in-car cameras to show the ride on a big screen).

Goodwood Photos



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