McLarens takeover the Goodwood 73rd Members Meeting

1 April, 2015

The Goodwood 73rd Members Meeting, held on March 21–22, was a spectacular occasion showcasing some of the best racing flashbacks seen for years, but what was our highlight?

McLaren decided to organize a never-seen-before experience for Goodwood fans by means of McLaren F1 GTR overload. McLaren arranged F1 GTRs from every year that they contested the BPR Global GT Series, alongside a few guest appearances such as the new McLaren P1 GTR.

What they also did was capture it all on video for your viewing pleasure. Feast your eyes on the ’95, ’96, and ’97 ‘Longtail’ GTRs all on the circuit at the same time.

Image credit: evo.co.uk

Performance art

Shelby’s targets were Superformance — a South African company that wanted to sell its versions of these cars in the US — and the US-based Factory Five. Their defence was that the name and shape of the Cobra car were abandoned when Shelby American ceased production of these particular models back in the 1960s.
Shelby countered with: “We spent millions of dollars creating the name and the car and winning the world championship. These knock-off-car guys don’t deserve the credit or the profit for what my team and Ford accomplished in the ’60s.”
Superformance painted an even bigger target on its back by also producing a version of Shelby’s Daytona coupé. Other cars in its production stable were Mk1 GT40 and 1962 Corvette Grand Sport replicas, but we’ll focus here on the Daytona.

Design accord

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.