Festival of Speed 2016 – our highlights…

Sorry for the delay, sometimes life just takes over but in the last month we did manage to get a couple of days at the Festival of Speed. Local to us, we have been attending the FoS since the first event back in 1993 and boy has it changed… in the early years it was a glorified fete with fabulous cars! You’d sit by the side of the track with your picnic and enjoy the spectacular sight as the history of motorsport blasted past. These days it is all a little different, more corporate, more sales orientated, more modern. With the Revival and Members Meeting taking over the historical aspects, the Festival concentrates more on modern motorsport and supercars. As such it has become much less appealing to us but still worth a couple of days looking for the gems and socialising with our car loving friends.

This year we went on the Thursday to the Moving Motorsport day as we get free tickets with our GRRC membership and then on the Sunday. Although the weather wasn’t perfect we managed to avoid too much rain and with local knowledge made the trip without too many delays.

In more recent times the Cartier Style et Luxe concours d’elegance has been one of our favourite displays and although this year it seemed to be lacking in that totally ‘Wow’ display, there was still a lot to entertain us. Of most interest was the Alpine ‘Pass and Present’ class showcasing a selection of the Renault derivative Alpine Sportcars. This 1954 Prototype was based on the 4cv with a coach built body by Giovani Michelotti and had many similarities to our own ‘Regie’ the 4cv. This is the first of three prototypes built and is still owned by Jean-Charles Rédélé founder of Alpine. One of only 30 this lovely 1965 Alpine A110 Cabriolet is based on a Renault 8. Regie would love to have a set of the wheel spinners! Without the money to develop the export market in the 60’s, Alpines were developed with partners abroad, this version with Willys Overland who built Dauphines in Brazil. Called the Willys Interlargos after the Brazilian GP Circuit. This one was restored for Retromobile in 2015. A 1977 A110 SX Berlinetta, the last of the 7579 Dieppe Built A110’s Wasn’t that keen on the 1977 Mérignac, too wedge shaped for me.For somebody who isn’t very fond of new cars this was fantastic, a prototype for a new Alpine going into production next year… I need one! The Alpine Vision was wonderful with some great details which unfortunately will probably never make it to the production model. Check out the wonderful logo shaped red key.
Other classes included Pioneering Lancias which were lovely, especially the 1959 Lancia Flaminia 2500 Sport Zagato and the 1933 Lancia Pininfarina Cabriolet ‘Bocca’ both below; The Dawn of Motoring; and Legendary Lamborghini’s which are too angular for my liking although I liked the Green 1971 Miura SV which won the overall prize. While we are talking retro style new cars… I also loved this new Fiat Abarth 124 Spyder. Here at the Moving Motor Show you can see the original Fiat 124 Rally car and the new 300bhp rally version which will be built to customer order for competition in FIA’s R-GT class in 2017. Being test driven up the hill was the road going version of the small roadster. Based on a Mazda MX5 it was a seriously cute modern sportscar.The defining feature of each years Festival is the central display, this year it was celebrating 100 years of BMW. As usual it was designed by Gerry Judah and this year’s was the biggest yet. The huge sweeping structure displayed the legendary BMW 328 Mille Miglia Roadster, the 1999 Le Mans-winning BMW V12 LMR, and the Gordon Murray-designed Brabham-BMW BT52 Formula One car which finished third in the 1983 championship.

While impressive it was almost too big and quite difficult to see the whole thing, especially when the event is so busy. The effect wasn’t helped by the inclement weather, I’m sure it would have looked better against a beautiful blue sky!
Also from BMW were a couple of examples of their ‘Art Cars’. I must confess to not knowing much about these before but they were great. Introduced by French driver and auctioneer Hervé Poulin, the first one was commissioned in 1975 when American artist Alexander Calder painted the BMW 3.0 CSL that Poulain would race at Le Mans. Many famous artists have been involved including David Hockney, Frank Stella (below), Roy Lichtenstein (below) and Andy Warhol.

Out and about in the paddocks and on the hill were a few gems. Perennial favourite the 1991 rotary engined Le Mans Mazda 787B, affectionately known as the Argyll Sock due to it’s distinctive paintwork.Some amazing 1930’s Mercedes Streamliners, very difficult to photograph. We popped into the Preview on the Bonhams Auction. This 1948 Aston Martin DB Team Car was one of the star lots. After a distinguished racing career the car was waiting for restoration when it was stolen from a garden in 2002. It was ‘found’ and returned to the original owner’s descendants recently and fetched £679,100 at the auction.A charity auction was held for this unique British Pop Art Bentley, this unique Continental GT V8 S Convertible was a collaboration between Bentley Motors and the godfather of British Pop Art, Sir Peter Blake. It raised £250,000
Advertising a future sale this amazing 1929 Megola 640cc Touring Bike has a front wheel mounted engine. The bike is part of an extraordinary collection owned by the late Robert White which are being auctioned to raise money to create a new cancer treatment centre. As you will know we are not awfully fond of Supercars but I did quite like the look of the new Bugatti Chiron, the successor to the Veyron. Loved the way the chrome door surrounds reflected the ‘C’ in the logo, although I suspect the car was designed first and the name and logo came second!  The Aston Martin Vulcan also created quite a lot of interest. This year the bikes were quite interesting. The totally mad Puma Gulf drag bike can go from 0 to 235mph in 5.8 seconds but couldn’t show that performance on the winding hill climb course. Filmstar Keanu Reeves created quite a stir riding the rather strange looking Arch KRGT-1 bike made by his own company. Unfortunately we never got to see the Yamaha ‘Triple’ on the track – a drag racer powered by three twin-cylinder engines.Once again a star of the weekend was the magnificent ‘Beast of Turin’. The fiat S76 is huge and it’s massive engine spits flames. Even better the owner drives it to Goodwood from his home. One of the best stands at the Festival was Honda which was a ‘perfect’ full size reproduction of the classic 1970’s Fisher Price Toy garage. The Mercedes F1 car made a great ‘picture’ on the wall. We also had the rather surreal experience of seeing Nico Rosberg being interviewed – he’s the tiny figure on the right of the huge on-screen image.
It wouldn’t be the Festival of Speed without an impressive firework display and they didn’t disappoint.

Maybe FoS 2016 wasn’t a classic but we still had an enjoyable couple of days and saw some interesting stuff. So roll on September and the Revival – Mario is all signed up for taxi duties and is looking forward to meeting up with friends old and new.

Advertisement

Goodwood FoS, the best bits…

June brings the Goodwood Festival of Speed, although this event is our least favourite of the Goodwood spectaculars, we do still like to visit. We decided to only go on the Thursday (moving Motor Show) and Friday due to time, money and friends plans.

Over the years since the first FoS in 1993 and as the Goodwood Revival and the New Members Meeting have developed, the FoS has definitely made a move towards the modern end of the Motoring spectrum and as such our interest has wained, in an event that back in the day was jaw-droopingly impressive and a must do on the calendar. Today it is a homage to the modern F1 and supercars, totally awesome to 8 year old boys but not quite so appealing to ‘sad old gits’.

However we are lucky enough to live within 25 minutes away – well make that an hour in Goodwood traffic with local knowledge – and so make the effort to attend, as there are still some elements of the show that we enjoy and it’s a great excuse to be sociable!

The Thursday was pleasantly spacious with a much smaller crowd and as the track is being used to demonstrate modern road cars gives an opportunity to look round the rest of the displays in relative peace and quiet. On Friday we had the opportunity to pop into the auction and go to the top of the hill to the rally stage, although our timing was rather off, as we arrived in the lunch break and during a long stop on the hill action after a big crash which damaged the hay bale ‘armco’.

Two days was enough to see what we wanted, although it would have been nice to have seen the huge welcome that the crowds gave, to FoS virgin Valentino Rossi, on the Sunday. Following is a pictorial diary of the bits we liked…

The Central Feature
A huge part of each years festival is the central feature, this year celebrating Mazda. We loved the curving structure as always designed by renowned sculptor Gerry Judah. The cars on the top were the 1991 Le Mans winning 787B Mazda and for the first time ever a concept car, previously only seen in a computer game, there is a great video of how it was made.

60 years of the Citroen DS
My personal favourites of the weekend was the Citroen DS class in the Cartier Style and Luxe, stunning cars especially loved the 1973 Familiale, a version of the Safari but with 9 seats would make a perfect stable mate for Mario and a great taxi for the Revival. Unfortunately most of the models in this class were very rare and hence very valuable. Cartier Style et Luxe
The Cartier is always our favourite area of the event and as well as the Citroens it didn’t disappoint with  a fantastic Figoni et Falaschi class with the most beautifully designed cars including the magnificent Talbot-Lago which won the overall award. The Auction
The Bonhams auction always contains a few gems, the ‘star’ cars were Stirling Moss’s 1961 Porsche RS61 Spyder Sports Racing which sold for £1,905,500 and a 1935 Aston Martin Works Ulster which had competed in the Mille Miglia, French GP and Le Mans and sold for £2,913,500. Personally we loved the two 1959 Fiat Abarth 750 Bialbero Coupe’s with Zagato bodywork, even better the engine would fit in Mario! We saw Jean Todd having a wander around. The Fiat S76
With just a bit more power than Mario this flame-spitting 300bhp Fiat broke the 1911 Flying Mile Land Speed Record. it has recently been restored and it was the first time it ran in public for more than a century. Peugeot 404 Diesel
Another record breaker, in June 1965 at Monthéry this diesel 404 broke 40 records including a 100mph average for 72 hours, it has a production 1.9l engine.

Concept Citroen DS Divine
As you have guessed we don’t like modern cars but we did rather like this Citroen Concept car which was made up with a wonderful mix of diamonds. The Jaguar Stand
Most of the major manufactures are at FoS and all seem to be outdoing themselves to have the biggest and most lavish stand. Even though we didn’t get ‘pies’ in the drivers hospitality this year Jaguar Landrover did have a fantastic stand with a tarmac ‘race’ track on one side and an articulated off road experience on the other. Rest of the event…
Don’t like Supercars but this Singer Porsche 911, a modern engineered take on an original classic, was pretty special, there was a Targa version in the Cartier too. It wouldn’t be FoS without an appearance of the Red Arrows, I got to see then on Saturday too when they flew over the house twice! It also wouldn’t be Goodwood with Sir Stirling Moss, here reunited with his Mille Miglia winning Mercedes, got a huge cheer as he went up the hill.The 24 hour record breaking Renault 40cv Montlhéry Coupé in1926 with an average speed of 107.5mph. Even some of the food stalls were cute! The Bentley Speed-Six ‘Blue Train’ Coupé – in the 1920’s Woolf Barnato raced the night express train from Cannes to Calais, he was in his club in London before the train made Calais! We finished the weekend with a trip down on Saturday Night to our club house to watch the FoS Ball fireworks, and listen to the Kaiser Chefs across the field , another great Goodwood weekend. You can see more pics of the weekend in our FoS15 gallery

 

 

Festival Fun… part 2

Continuing our musings and observations from this weekends Goodwood Festival of Speed…

Festival Ball Fireworks
On Saturday evening we popped down to Goodwood for a drink and to watch the Festival ball entertainment from a distance. The entertainment seemed to be a laser show with light lit dancers ‘fighting’ laser battles, this was followed by an awesome fireworks display which lit up the sky. We could just hear the sound of the Beach Boys playing in the distance but the wind was blowing the wrong way so it was very quiet.

Cartier Style et Luxe
One of my favourite bits of FoS every year is the Cartier Style et Luxe, Concours d’elegance. Judged on design and style by a panel of guru’s from many disciplines, the event always brings together a collection of unique and fascinating vehicles. There were 7 classes ranging from Junior Sportscar of the 1920’s, Pre-war Supercharged Mercedes, Coach Built Maseratis of the 50’s to the Development of the Modern Super Car.

This amazing 1935 Mercedes-Benz 500K Cabriolet was captured by the Russians during the war and driven back to Moscow where it was seen driving around for many years.
The 1971 Mazda RX500, seen in the UK for the first time was developed as a mobile test bed for high speed safety. Powered by a 491cc single rotor Wankel engine it had a top speed of 125 mph – is this the faster ever ‘micro’ car? The rear lights were intended to turn green under acceleration, orange when cruising at a constant speed and red when braking. I loved this 1964 ATS 3000 GTS. Automobili Turismo e Sport was founded by Ferrari defectors Giotto Bizzarrini and Carlo Chiti with the aim of beating Enzo Ferrari at his own game. The company folded in 1964 and only a handful of cars were made. I don’t know where the Dragon on the bonnet badge comes from?The 2004 Peugeot 907 concept car had an incredible leather interior which smelt devine! The 1971 De Tomaso Mangusta has a wonderful name which I had know idea about. Mangusta is italian for Mongoose, an animal capable of killing Cobras – a subtile swipe at the famous AC/Shelby Cobra of the time.A 1969 McLaren M12 GTThe Best in Show was won by a rather unassuming Maserati A6 CGS Berlinetta, which I didn’t even take a picture of!

Displays
McLaren were very much in evidence this year not only with the F1 team but the Road cars had a big presence and for the first time, unveiled a new model at the Festival – this McLaren GT, their latest competition race car.
The McLaren 650S was making its Festival of Speed debut having been revealed at the Geneva Motor show in March. There was a great display of F1 and road McLarens lining the walkway  to the Drivers Club. Maserati celebrating their 100th anniversary, were another company making a splash with the UK public debut of the Alfieri Concept, named after one of the Maserati brothers who founded the company. The Alfieri received the Design Award for Concept Cars & Prototypes at the upmarket Villa d’Este concours in northern Italy. The style of the moment seems to be for highlights of bright colours, this does look pretty good. Maserati had some great older cars in their display, the first generation Ghibli model from the 60’s, an original super car which now looks very small and simple compared with the modern versions. I never used to like this sort of car but I’m beginning to find them rather attractive. This 60’s first generation Quattroporte was probably one of the rarest cars at the event and one receiving the least attention. Paddocks
The paddocks are of course the place to see the cars close up but it is quite difficult to get pictures of them, barriers and people in the way plus they are often half in shadow, half in sunshine. This 1911 Fiat S76 was absolutely huge, built to capture the Land Speed record it achieved over 180mph in 1912 and hasn’t been used since 1914 until this weekend! Another fantastic huge beast was the Renault 40cv Montlhery Coupe built in 1926 which averaged 107.5mph over 24 hours at Montlhery. The 1935 Monte Carlo winning Renault Nervasport was beautiful and very very shiny. On the Monte the car had faced extremely harsh winter conditions, with icy roads and temperatures down to -20°C. It followed up with a win on the 1935 Liège-Rome-Liège race (4500 km in a single leg) and took second place in the Morocco Rally, behind Bugatti.

In my opinion the Martini branding is one of the most attractive ever seen in motorsport, seen here on the Jaguar XJ220GT once the fasted car in the world. It’s great to see the livery back this year on the Williams F1. The Audi Type C Alpine was glorious, particularly the lovely oil/fuel can on the running boards. Audi won the Austrian Alpine Rally three times in this model 1912-1914. For many years it has been traditional for cars to come straight from the Le Mans 24hr to Goodwood complete with dirt and damage. This year was no exception with several teams making an appearance including the winning Audi. Looking at how cramped the cockpit is I wouldn’t want to spend 10 minutes let alone a share of 24 hours inside.The Mercedes-Benz transporter is pretty awesome and love the fact that it was built to go fast; 105mph and sign written on the side in order to intimidate their competitors!Rally Stage
The forest rally stage cut into the chalk and woodland at the top of the hill is a great if dusty attraction. The rally paddock at the top is much quieter and more relaxed, much more like the earlier festivals. This year for the first time the rally stage was timed making it more competitive – possibly the reason it was red flagged so often! Nine times World Champion Sebastien Loeb was very quick in the Citroen DS3 WRC but I don’t know the final results. Also seen on the course the iconic Subaru Impreza WRC from 1997, a 1972 Lotus Esprit with ski’s on the roof, right up to modern cars.

In the air
The skies above Goodwood are also full of action with regular air displays including a Hunter & Canberra, Typhoon and the Red Arrows in their 50th anniversary year livery with Union Flag painted tails.

People
Of course it is the stars old and current that the people come to see, as the event has become bigger it is harder to meet your hero’s, rather than just mooching around the paddocks they are ensconced in the privacy of the drivers club and make timed appearances on sponsors stands. In the old days I always came away from the festival clutching a full autograph book and with ‘selfies’ in the camera, these days I can’t be bothered to try and run from stand to stand to try and catch a glimpse of a driver or push and shove in a scrum near the F1 paddocks to get my book signed. I was in the right place and the right place to see a few and at least amongst them a couple of my personal favourites Jochen and Emanuele …
Jochen Mass – F1 and SportscarsEx Red Bull F1 and now Porsche Sportscar driver Mark Webber 1970’s Ferrari, Williams and March F1 driver Arturo Merzario, he was one of the drivers who saved Niki Lauda from his burning car in the 1976 German Grand Prix.

Emanuele Pirro, F1, Touring car and Sportscar driver, winning Le Mans 5 times.Current Red Bull F1 test driver Sébastien Buemi takes a new Infiniti up the hill during the Moving Motorshow

 Shoot out
The weekend ended with the timed shoot out, the aim to try to beat Nick Heidfeld’s fifteen year hill record of 41.6 seconds in a McLaren MP4-13 Formula One car. Since then the F1 cars haven’t been timed as they were thought to be too dangerous, the current cars cannot be run as it is deemed by the FIA to be ‘testing’.

The main contender was Sebastien Loeb in the Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak car. Unfortunately as the hill was running very late and Loeb had to leave he ran first. He made a good time but it was still three seconds off the record. No one else could come close and this made a bit of an anti-climax to the day.

Sebastien LOEB

Peugeot 208 T16 ‘Pikes Peak’

44.60

Michael BARTELS

Maserati MC12 ‘Goodwood Cent 100’

45.82

Kenny BRACK

McLaren F1 GTR ‘Long Tail’

47.52

We’d had a great weekend and decided for once not to stay for the prize giving as the afternoon was still running late. It had been another good year, we have never really watched the actual hill climb preferring to just wander around, chat to friends and generally soak up the atmosphere. My father had a brilliant day on Thursday and is still talking about it. It is through him that I got into cars and motorsport at a very early age spending much of my childhood standing in forests watching rally cars tear past or at Thruxton enjoying the destruction of Caravan racing. I suppose it wasn’t surprising that I ended up with a partner who has been car obsessed since he could talk. At least having a shared passion means we get to have great weekends together at events such as FoS, now we start looking forward to the best weekend of the year and one that Mario can join in… The Revival.

Oh to be a millionaire…

On February 15/16 in Madison, Georgia, USA, RM Auctions will be holding a sale of the entire collection from the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum. There are some 200 microcars up for sale and how I would love to add some to our ‘small’ family but we would need to have a significant win on the lottery first!

Now what is strange about this auction is that it isn’t the first time it’s happened. Bruce Weiner an American who made his fortune in Bubble Gum, I believe started collecting ‘bubble cars’ many many years ago to promote his business. He went on to build a collection, opened a museum and then on the 6 March 1997 they were auctioned by Christie’s at the Jack Barclay Showrooms at Nine Elms, London.

We were there and that’s what fuelled our love of small cars. That auction was amazing, there was such an atmosphere with hundreds of people crammed in and outside the showroom and prices went ballistic. Bidding was frantic with prices beating the estimates many times over, bearing in mind this was fifteen years ago a Peel Trident estimated at £3000 fetched nearly £30k and it looks like it will be happening all over again.

At  the time we already had Regie the Renault 4cv and had fallen in love with the idea of getting an original Fiat Multipla, there was one in the Auction with a guide price of £500, so we went to have a look. It wasn’t that good, needed a lot of work and ended up selling for the best part of £3000.

There is a Multipla in the upcoming sale, it looks much better than the one in 1997 (the catalogue photography is beautiful but obviously ‘processed’ so would be interested to see the real condition) but the current guide price is $50-60k! Mario will be watching the sale with interest, although to us he is priceless.

 

Now what happened 15 years ago… well for Bruce it was the thrill of the chase that excited him and collecting and displaying his finds, so once he had sold his original collection he began collecting again and so here we are all these years later and the much improved and enlarged collection is going to auction again.

Bruce says “To me, it’s all about the thrill of the chase,” Weiner adds. “My collection has brought me incredible joy over the years, but simply finding and restoring these cars is not enough for me. In order to fully appreciate them, I need to share them. I’m really looking forward to the sale and happy that these unique cars will be spread to other passionate collectors throughout the world. As I see it, we’re enlarging the microcar community by letting these go and helping keep history alive.”

Amongst the lots is a Peel Trident, the car that took our interest all those years ago. This 1966 model is now estimated at $40-50k not such a big increase as the Multipla. I actually got to sit in one at the Goodwood Revival in 2005 and there really isn’t much room but we always fancied having one so we could dress up and look like aliens. So what we would we bid on if we won the lottery. My favourite has to be this fantastic 1957 Jurisch Motoplan Prototype, it’s amazingly cute but with only three ever being made and an estimate of $50-75k looks unlikely to be joining the collection.
Next up would be this 1956 Fuldamobil S-6 $40-50k
and this mad looking 1955 Inter 175A Berline $40-50k A beautiful 1959 Frisky Family 3 is more affordable at $15-20kOr this adorable 1962 Mazda R360 Coupe at $20-30k which would be a great stable companion for our Subaru 360.
Or one that’s been on the wish list for a while a 1961 Autobianchi Bianchia Special Cabriolet just like Audrey Hepburn drove round Rome in ‘How to steel a Million’

The maddest thing in the auction and probably the most expensive is the 1959 BMW Isetta “Whatta Drag” a working creation of a Hot Wheels model. Not sure how practical it would be though. See it run in this video.So if we come into a fortune in the next couple of weeks I will be bidding like mad for some of these beauties. There are loads more oddities and rare examples plus lots of the more usual microcars up for grabs as well as an extensive collection of models and memorabilia, take a look at the online catalogue.

RM are putting on a very slick auction with a fantastic ‘micro’ catalogue which runs to 800+ pages and I’m sure will become a collectors item in it’s own right but comes with an $80 price tag, to get into the auction itself there is a charge of $150 for two people, there seems to be lots of hype already so maybe the audience will be as excited as in 1997 and the already high estimates will be exceeded. I suppose this will be good for the small car market in general but frenzied bidding creating over high prices which will never be realised in the normal sales market and will only lead to disappointment when microcars are sold or valued after the event so we will have to wait and see. Whatever happens it will raise the profile of small cars around the world and hopefully more people will grow to appreciate them for what they are – great examples of design and above all such a lot of fun.