Goodwood Festival of Speed 2013

The Goodwood Festival of Speed 2013 was held July 11-14 at Goodwood House and the 1.16-mile Goodwood hill climb in West Sussex, England. A record total of more than 195,000 attendees visited this year’s event, with more than 150 star drivers and riders present, plus over 500 interesting and diverse vehicles, as Goodwood celebrated the 20th anniversary of the popular motorsports gathering.

The 20th annual Festival saw the biggest, best, fastest, loudest and most outrageous vehicles of all time invited back to Goodwood to help celebrate the birthday.Goodwood also honored the 90th anniversary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, 60 years of the World Sports Car Championship, the 50th anniversaries of the Porsche 911, McLaren, Lamborghini, Mini Cooper S, Ford Lotus Cortina and the European Touring Car Championship and the 40th birthday of the World Rally Championship.

Goodwood dedicated the 50th anniversary of the Porsche 911 with a bespoke 911-inspired sculpture, displayed, as has become the tradition, quite prominently outside Goodwood House. Twice each day the hill climb played host to a dedicated class of road and race going 911s, covering all seven generations of this iconic rear-engined sports car from Germany. Further examples of significant Porsche competition cars including the 917, 936 and 956 were also featured. At the wheel were a variety of famous drivers with strong affinity to Porsche, including two-time winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours and German Touring Car Champion, Hans-Joachim Stuck, Porsche Supercup factory Junior driver Michael Christensen, alongside former works aces Richard Attwood and Vic Elford.

There was an exhibition of timeless red and blue striped livery of Martini Racing cars, in celebration of the Italian drinks brand’s 150-year heritage, the Land Speed Legends Display, which featured masterpieces conceived to break world records and the collection of McLaren Racing machines on the hill, from the 1964 McLaren-Oldsmobile M1A right up to the latest cutting-edge MP4-12C GT3.

Crowds were left speechless by the staggering wheelies as Bob Riggle’s 1500bhp ‘Hemi Under Glass’ 1965 Plymouth Barracuda became airborne and the rear laid a succession of sparks along the rubber coated Tarmac. In addition, Peter Fonda was found waving to the crowds from his Easy Rider Harley-Davidson chopper, the mighty Vulcan bomber was roaring overhead and current Formula 1 drivers were tearing up the course in the latest F1 machinery.

The Sunday Shootout competition was won by Justin Law in his Jaguar XJR8/9, with Law posting a quick time of 45.95 seconds up the 1.16-mile Hill Climb course. In second place (47.32 secs) was the impressive Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak car driven by Gregory Guilvert, who just beat squeezed by Jonny Cocker in the unconventional yet technically impressive Lola-Drayson (47.34 secs). Closing in was fourth place Alex Buncombe who also reached a sub-48 time of 47.79 seconds in a Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3. However, the overall Festival Fastest Time of Day of 45.86 seconds was shared jointly by Gregory Gilvert in the Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak and the Goodwood hillclimb record holder Nick Heidfeld in a Lola-Toyota B12/60.

Senior Photographer Tim Scott documented the 2013 Goodwood Festival of Speed, offering up a wonderful selection of images that capture the essence of “largest motoring garden party in the world”. We split up Tim’s 479 pictures into two galleries. The first gallery starting below features our favorite images, all displayed in the full-width view of Sports Car Digest, while the second gallery can be found on the last page of the article and gives a comprehensive view of all the photographs. To see more from Tim, visit fluidimages.co.uk.