Buckle yourself in for a weekend filled with Goodwood Festival, streaming live here

26 June, 2015

The running of the annual Goodwood Festival of Speed, on until June 28, looks to be one of the most diverse yet. Every cornerstone of international motoring and motorsport is covered, to the point where selecting a panel of highlights is rendered an impossible task for even the most opinionated car fan. Check out the provisional entry list below, and you’ll understand what we mean.

Goodwood Festival of Speed Entry List 2015 Provisional by Máté Petrány

Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, BMW, Formula 1, Nascar, drifting, IndyCar, Honda, Ducati, and many more are there in incredible numbers. There is something for absolutely everyone.

New Zealand influence can also be seen throughout the line-up, with the Porsche 919 Hybrid that Earl Bamber recently helped race to victory at Le Mans, Greg Murphy’s 2009 Sprint Gas Racing Holden VE Commodore V8 Supercar, ‘Mad Mike’ Whiddett’s Mazda RX-7, and McLarens galore also in attendance.

To view all of these incredible machines on the track, check out the live feed below.

Leading image: Goodwood Festival of Speed

Grand Routier — in the french tradition

Sitting in Paddy and Patsy Williams’ Dunedin garage is a stunning example of one of these rare French grand routier sedans. It is a 1949 four-door Lago-Record Factory Berline sedan, to give its full name. Daughter Cath let us know how proud she was of her dad, who had been tinkering away in his garage on this car for so many years.
Without exaggeration, it has been a mammoth task. I first saw this Talbot-Lago in mid 2019. The long-nosed, sweeping, curved four-door saloon, clothed in its misty green metallic paint, was quite breathtaking. There’s more than a little English influence in it, too, harking back to company owner Tony Lago’s involvement in the Clement-Talbot-Darracq era. The long front wings and bonnet, usually multi-louvred, highlighted with artful touches of chrome bling, are typical of the era, but these were indeed luxury length. Interiors provided leather-clad, armchair-style seating and ample legroom, with touches of wood and surprising details such as dainty childproof interior locks — a far cry from today’s lozenge boxes.
Paddy, a retired civil and structural engineer, knows his way around a lathe. He has a well-equipped garage-workshop to assist in any machining tasks along with his other passion for restoring classic motorcycles.

The Great River Road

A few years ago my family, knowing my fondness for driving, gave me the book Unforgettable Road Trips: Thirty-Six Drives of a Lifetime by Martin Derrick. Most of the road trips listed take less than a day in places like Scotland, Monaco, and Australia, plus one in New Zealand. Most of these places were too far to go just for a short drive but four of them would take several days. My interest was piqued, and those four drives were added to the bucket list. To date, I have done three of them: ‘Route 66’ (USA 21 days), ‘State Highway 6’ (NZ 10 days) and ‘The Great River Road’ (USA 22 days). You can drive all of them in less time, but you could also fly over them. We wanted a decent immersion in their charms.
The great river referred to is the Mississippi. While the name conjures the deep south, the river actually starts at the bottom of the great lakes, before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico about 3800km later. The great road is more of a concept than a specific strip of tarmac, as you can drive down either side of the river on various routes. Regardless of which side you drive, time should be kept aside for detours to places such as Nashville, which is famous for something or other.