‘Festival of speed’ special – Sound it out

‘In the corner of the workshop, Olli Ragbin sits watching events unfold before him’

I must admit to a little restlessness in the workshop this week. I was counting down the days to Saturday and the annual trip to the Goodwood ‘Festival of Speed’.

I go with my 2 boys every year and like many plans in 2020, last year’s FoS was scuppered.

Eric also attends but has a distinctly different strategy. I book my tickets a year in advance and then spend many months in anticipation. Eric doesn’t even give the event a second thought, waits till the day before and then suddenly (but annoyingly regularly from my perspective) a ticket just happens to land in his lap, usually following a phone call from a connection who starts the chat with the line ‘I’ve got a spare ticket for Goodwood tomorrow if you fancy it’.

I guess this is how things roll when you’re the boss. From my lowly position in the West corner of the workshop I certainly don’t remember receiving such a phone call enquiring of my availability for hospitality. Come to think of it, I don’t recall every having received a phone call at all… anyway…

On Thursday Eric emerged from the office sheepishly, eyes nervously checking to see if anyone had noticed. Work carried on busily around him.

‘Er, I’m just nipping out for a couple of hours….errands, you know…. ‘ followed by a hasty retreat into the office and then a sharp exist stage left.

A couple of hours later Ingrid popped her head round the door and asked of Eric's whereabouts.

‘He’s gone to the festival of speed on a free ticket’ said young Chris without looking up from his work.

‘Well if he’s doing that, I’m going to nip to the shops in his new toy’ said Ingrid.

(Ingrid in full ‘mouse at play’ mode whilst Eric the cat is away)

FoS aside, work carries on in the CCM workshop.

Shrimp-eye Justin about to prod an Alpine engine…I think this is something to do with electricity, but I can’t be sure. Moments later the Alpine engine (which had made the mistake of turning its back on the silently approaching Shrimp-eye) let out a little squeal.

Between Eric and I we captured a load of great photos from our combined time at Goodwood. One thing strikes me is the differing tastes on automotive wonder. We share much in common, but like any enthusiasts, we differ in the details.

The commonality I think can be put down to one key attribute. Design. And so we will use this as the pivot point from which to paint our separate visits to Lord March’s country pile.

(The most iconic British car design ever? This one would no doubt have Shrimp-eye Justin’s vote)

Enzo Ferrari thought the E-type the most beautiful car design ever. It’s the reason why Eagle used it as their basis for a resto-mod. Views will be mixed as to whether this trumps the original, but it is never the less stunning. (Young Chris will likely curl his lip and raise an eyebrow at the suggestion the latter beats the former).

If you had to draw a French car, then my guess is it would look something like this. (Note: Considering current climate sensibilities, I have decided to avoid massively lazy stereotypical cliches and so I am not going to say you that it ‘couldn’t be more French if it smelt of lightly buttered warm baguettes’. I’m just not going to go there, ok.)

You can’t go to Goodwood and not come back with a pic of a Bristol. Dr Ray would likely hand his notice in if we did.

We don’t have enough space to cover just how important, influential and long-standing a design this car has in automotive history. Like any classic enthusiast though, it warms the cockles to see ‘restored impeccably to original’ examples of any of our favourites. Looks stunning in silver too.

Peter Stevens designed this incredible Jaguar XJR-15. We were 2 yards away when this drove out of the paddock toward the hill. The sound. The sound. Good gracious. Sooo loud and menacing. The noise a virtually un-silenced V12 makes just trickling the car forward is utterly beguiling

Electricity is here. This is a crap picture of a beautiful car (my fault). The freedom that clean power has given is evident in design cues not seen before. Packaging of electric propulsion opens up space which petrol driven units (especially big ones) need.

Stand at the back of the car and you look through two huge air flow tunnels that simply cannot exist if conventional power were present.

This will no doubt be faster than anything powered by oil. Can’t wait to read the reviews later this year.

Another Peter Stevens design (this time along with Gordon Murray). There were no crowds around this car. No jostling to get a close look. I just wandered in, looked through the plexiglass side window and took a few snaps.

This car has to be worth north of £15m. Where on earth else can you get such casual access to such refined race engineering? That’s Goodwood.

For the fist time ever we visited the off-road section and saw a selection of utterly crazy machines going flat out on ground I’d have trouble navigating with Wellingtons.

I’m not sure this was Rover V8 powered judging by the screaming noise coming from the rear, shaming a 'standard' rally 6R4 into blandness.

Another crap picture, another stunning British design.

Cues from the incredible Ferrari Daytona are obvious. What is less obvious is that this was deemed suitable for rallying. In the forest section we witnessed a similar one sideways round the slimy chalk. Full-lock applied, V8 growling sonorously.

Who in BL thought this would work?

The equivalent today would be the marketing team at BMW flip-charting the idea of entering the latest 7 series in Paris Dakar. I’m convinced that in the strike-infested 70’s someone at British Leyland spent a month or too longer in Amsterdam than was strictly sensible.

My boys smiled the biggest smiles at noise this weekend. Standing this close to a JPS Lotus warming up was only just about bearable.

A year 2000’s F1 Ferrari came past us unseen when we were in the forest and he was cruising back down the hill when he suddenly stabbed the throttle to trigger an instant burnout. It’s like the sound of a thousand angry angels screaming all at once. There’s literally nothing like it on earth. You hear the wailing V10 in your chest, not an organ normally associated with aural ability.

You can’t help but grin (and then quickly put a finger to ear to check for blood).

At the back of all the trade stands is a car park for patrons who own something a little bit more special than an A4 diesel. This is far and away the most concentrated area of real-world loveliness at the event. Many moons ago I owned a 6 series in Misano red. This example was (I found out after a bit of research) a super-low mileage genuine M6. Shwartz black (I’m guessing) with Ox blood leather interior. This for me is probably the ultimate M-car….ever.

Perfectly proportioned length, that shark-nose design. Perfect primary balance from the straight six that powered the original M1, evolving all the way through to its perfection peak in the E46 M3.

I could have wandered around this enclosure all day however we were cut short by a small child with an even smaller bladder who was bored beyond believe and had already negotiated an evening takeaway and extra sweets. I had nothing left to give so reluctantly we retired for the day.

My favourite moment from the weekend? The wet weather on Saturday didn’t curb the enthusiasm of the drivers and this old (and outrageously loud) Mk II Jag was driven as if it were on fire. When the wheelman arrived at the top of the hill, all the preceding drift-car pilots gave him a round of applause for his show of utter commitment in the conditions.

(The magic of it all utterly un-captured in my photograph)

More than anything else this sums up the spirit of Goodwood. No matter what your passion is, drive it like you mean it and love it like you’re never going to sell it.

For those of us who spectate, we just stand and marvel at the diversity of everything beautiful in the automotive world. Even electric will have its place. Things move on and at times, it’s difficult to not get a little lost in the ‘I know what I like and I like what I know frame of mind’.

Beautiful design though is timeless.

Whilst electricity is the future, I still can’t help feeling that for the thrill and pleasure of pure driving, sound is as fundamental as feel and as a lover of all things mechanical, this is the circle I don’t know can ever be truly squared.

We finish this week with news that Eric’s son, Jack, got a first in his ‘politics and international relations’ degree. Massive congrats from all the CCM gang. What an achievement. Certainly throws shade on my CSE grade 2 in geology….(maybe I should stop crowing about that now.)

So from the CCM team, Eric, Siobhan, Dr Ray, Shrimp-eye Justin, Young Chris, Izzi, Ingrid and our future Prime Minister Jack, have a great week.

Olli