Friday 27th June 2014

Goodwood Festival of Speed: PH Blog

Mardenborough and Loeb battle it out for honours on Lord March's driveway

---

Kicking off with The Moving Motor Show, The Goodwood Festival of Speed's size and scope just gets bigger every year. And PH is going to be there all weekend. Indeed, Lord March is going to be charging us rent at this rate. In keeping with recent event blogs like those from Le Mans and the Nurburgring 24-hour we'll be chipping in with updates here as regularly as we can - you can also follow us on Twitter at @PistonHeads and by using the hashtag #PHFoS14.

See you there!

---

My Saturday at the Festival of Speed was somewhat curtailed by traffic. Nope, not getting into the site (I may have just been lucky but it seems to have been pretty good this year) but on the sodding M25. With an interview with Infinti's Jerry Hardcastle booked for 2pm things were looking a bit squeaky cheeked but I made it onto the stand just 10 minutes late. Not bad all told and it was well worthwhile, Jerry's tales of building the Juke R and his latest inventive use of the GT-R engine in the Q50 Eau Rouge that's running here really interesting. He's definitely on the PH wavelength with the car too - full story to follow once I've transcribed the chat but it's always good when your interviewee keeps looking at his PR handler and prefixes each comment with "He's not going to like me saying this but..."

Reid in the ill-fated Aston Martin

Later in the day we managed to catch the qualifying for the big boys setting times for the timed runs, anticipation building ahead of Loeb's run in particular. With many people heading off the action on the track at this point was really hotting up, Jann Mardenborough following his 49.27 Supercar category winning run in the GT-R NISMO Time Attack, Anthony Reid just behind in the rather more lairy looking Noble M600. In the GT-R GT3 Mardenborough was again setting the pace, Reid sadly putting his Aston Martin into the flint wall and delaying Loeb's run. It looked impressive but he'll have to find five seconds to beat Nick Heidfeld's famous 41.6. As much as the demonstration runs are fun it gets rather more exciting when the heat of competition really heats things up.

Anticipation is building. If anyone can...

Dan

---

Previous updates:
Ford fun in the Lotus Cortina, Escort Mexico and an old Fiesta
Dan tries not to crash the brand new PH BMW M4
Chatting with the man behind Goodwood's centrepiece scupture
Behind the wheel at the Goodwood Festival of Speed
The one car you HAVE to see go up the hill

[161BMW]

Boy I really like that Fiesta. My grandad used to have one and took me to primary school in one. Would love a drive of that Fiesta. His was 1.1L I think.

[lamboman100]

I remember my pop buying a red Cortina with an MOT for £8 (eight), as a trade deal, back in the early 1990s (equivalent to roughly 16 quid today). That was prolly the all-time trough for "classic" Ford prices

[only1ian]

Thin steering wheels come back I miss you

[Gun]

That Lotus Cortina

[timbo48]

That Lotus Cortina brings back some memories. I had a 2 door GT Cortina in Lotus colours back a while, lowered and with "wide" steel rims, five and a half Js. And with the compulsory front quarter bumpers. Otherwise standard. Great handling car for its time.

[XJR500bhp]

HI Dan - were you bowling about in this on Sunday afternoon near Mayfield? Looked awesome if it was

[SprintSpeciale]

One of my first cars was a Mk 1 Fiesta (by then about 10 years old). It was a 1.3 Ghia, if I recall. It was huge fun to thrash. I was hacking back from Silverstone to Wales on a Sunday night and, having abandoned the motorway for the B roads, I was a bit optimistic with my speed over a vicious hump-backed bridge. After a brief flight, the crash to the ground broke the exhaust, and the poor thing didn't feel quite right steering wise for the rest of the trip back. Next morning, my girlfriend jumped in it and one of the half shafts snapped. A proper inspection then revealed the stupidity of finishing my journey after the bridge incident, and the little Ford was given a dignified send off..

Is there a RS2000 (The Professionals era) there, Dan? I wanted one of those so badly when I was a kid that it hurt.

[Hoppelemine]

Only 2 door mirrors between all 3 cars...

[PATTERNPART]

I'll be there on Sunday to see my brother-in-law dash up the hill. The old Fords are nice. Dare I say it the Escorts and Cortinas are ubiquitous. The Fiesta is rare!

[FestivAli]

I love the honesty of that old Fiesta. To me there is something very appealing about a car does nothing other than being a car. Perfect to park next to the Zonda.

[scottos]

We look after two Lotus Cortina rally cars and build quite a lot of the twin cam engines, im borderline obsessed with the cars themselves! The prices they are reaching nowadays probably means ill never get to own one mind!

[Shurv]

Would love a Lotus Cortina, always have. One for the fantasy garage.

[clubsportguy]

Ford use to own a lovely low miles Silver Mk1 XR2 but for some reason sold it off !!!

[rogerhudson]

Howmanyleft.co.uk show about 200 Cortina Mk1 Lotus yet only about 80 Mk1 and same Mk1GTs, SORN included, of course they may be others in sheds from the days before SORN ( a pure jobsworth scam if ever there was one) which would not be counted.

How did the Lotus tame that wild rear axle? my old Mk1 nearly killed me on a twisty road in '73 with a huge fishtailing (at night).
The Mk1 show some stylish design, the later ones were real boxes.

[masermartin]

rogerhudson said:

Howmanyleft.co.uk show about 200 Cortina Mk1 Lotus yet only about 80 Mk1 and same Mk1GTs, SORN included, of course they may be others in sheds from the days before SORN ( a pure jobsworth scam if ever there was one) which would not be counted.

How did the Lotus tame that wild rear axle? my old Mk1 nearly killed me on a twisty road in '73 with a huge fishtailing (at night).
The Mk1 show some stylish design, the later ones were real boxes.

Having owned a car that doesn't exist according to howmanyleft, I do smile every time someone quotes it.

BMW post said:

"You sneaked that one past me..." said my chaperone, swiftly engaging the DSC back on for the first turn.

[thatguy11]

M4's looking spectacular!

[EricE]

There is a great livestream of the whole event on Youtube... maybe you could plug it on the PH frontpage so people know?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embed...

edit: its over for today...

edit 2: didn’t see the announcement, oops

Edited by EricE on Thursday 26th June 16:56

[Gandahar]

Considering the excess bling I thought everyone added with their keyboards it looks pretty good Dan, but can you post more photo's?

Good colour choice for wheels and paint at least.

You could have scuffed it a bit just to see how much all those carbon bits cost to replace and given us the info.

[I WISH]

Love the early Lotus Cortinas. Way out of my price range now though :O(

[rogerhudson]

masermartin said:

rogerhudson said:

Howmanyleft.co.uk show about 200 Cortina Mk1 Lotus yet only about 80 Mk1 and same Mk1GTs, SORN included, of course they may be others in sheds from the days before SORN ( a pure jobsworth scam if ever there was one) which would not be counted.

How did the Lotus tame that wild rear axle? my old Mk1 nearly killed me on a twisty road in '73 with a huge fishtailing (at night).
The Mk1 show some stylish design, the later ones were real boxes.

Having owned a car that doesn't exist according to howmanyleft, I do smile every time someone quotes it.

BMW post said:

"You sneaked that one past me..." said my chaperone, swiftly engaging the DSC back on for the first turn.

Howmanyleft gets DVLA data, probably the source of the problem, one of my cars is an AC 2litre Saloon, but the
DVLA seems to think it is an AC(electric), whatever that might be, they really are worse than when registrations were done at county halls.