GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED 2006

19.07.2006 ALFA ROMEO 8C 2900B TOURING WINS "BEST OF SHOW" AT THE GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED

A world away from the high-powered action up the famous "Goodwood Hill" during the Festival of Speed each year is the rather serene Cartier 'Style et Luxe' Paddock, where the entrants are competing in a contest which has in recent years become one of the world's most coveted car design competitions. It's a concours d'elegance like no other: a celebration of the beautiful, the imaginative and the innovative in automotive design, a tribute to the talents that produced the great cars gathered at Goodwood. Set on the tranquil lawn of Goodwood House the 'Style et Luxe' is a cherished bastion of artistry and good taste.

The competition comprises around 50 cars in 10 classes representing the history of motoring. Categories this year ranged from "Pioneering Spirit - Alternative Power from the Dawn of Motoring" which included early cars such as an 1892 Panhard et Levassor P2D and an 1899 De Dion-Bouton Tricycle, to a class dedicated solely to the Lamborghini Miura on the occasion of its 40th anniversary, "The Magnificent Miura - Fortieth Anniversary Tribute to the Original Supercar". Aside from the class created especially for the Miura, and another category that paid tribute to the Vespa and Lambretta scooters of the 1950s and 1960s, evocative Italian metal was very well represented. A 1937 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Touring entered in Class 3 "Modernism on the Move - Coachbuilt Fantasies of the Streamlined age" by Bill Ainscough, walked off with the overall prize of "Best of Show". It was joined in the category by a 1939 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 entered by Corrado Lopresto.

Other Italian cars taking part this year were a 1938 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Mille Miglia Spider (entered by Pierre Mellinger) which was competing in Class 4 "Cheating the Wind - Streamlined Sports Cars of the Late 1930s"; and four different cars entered in Class 5 "Riviera Roadsters - Romantic Open Two-Seaters of the 1950s": a 1950 Siata-Fiat Torino 208S (entered by Hubert Fabri); a 1955 Lancia Aurelia B24 Spider (entered by Anthony Hussey); a 1958 Maserati 3500 GT Spyder (entered by Jeremy Cottingham) and a 1959 Ferrari 250 Spyder 'California' (entered by David Callaghan).


 

Away from the high-powered action on the famous "Goodwood Hill" is the serene Cartier 'Style et Luxe' paddock, the entrants competing in a contest which has in recent years become one of the world's most coveted car design competition.

The overall winner of the "Best of Show" at the Goodwood Festival of Speed Cartier 'Style et Luxe' this year was Bill Ainscough and his stunningly beautiful 1937 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Touring.


Unlike a conventional concours d'elegance though, the judges of the 'Style et Luxe' contest at Goodwood are not car experts but eminent personalities from the arts. The judging panel this year included Star Wars film director George Lucas, furniture maker Viscount Linley, as well as the pop-singer and artist Rolf Harris. The rest of the panel was comprised of Deborah Bull, Tom Dixon, Nick Foulkes, Geordie Greig, Kevin McCloud, Paul McKenna and Philip Treacy.

Judging at Goodwood is not a scientific points-scoring process, but a consideration of each car as an object of beauty and practicality. While most of the panel will know little about cars, the artist's intrinsic understanding of proportion, detail, texture and finish invoke some intriguing and often rather alternative opinions, and the judges bring a wide range of sympathies to the panel.

Alongside the stunning Italian machines in the Cartier 'Style et Luxe' Paddock was the show-stopping, one-off 1938 Phantom Corsair. This outlandish prototype was designed by Rust Heinz, a member of the ‘57 Varieties’ H. J. Heinz family, assisted by Maurice Schwartz of the California-based coachbuilding firm, Bohman and Schwartz. A six-seater coupe of distinctive streamlined design, the Phantom Corsair cost around $24,000 to build, a considerable some of money for a car in 1938. The Phantom was highly advanced for its day, with contemporary features such as running boards, cycle wings and exposed door handles all dispensed with in the interests of aerodynamics. The slippery two-door body was mounted onto a sophisticated front-wheel-drive Cord 810 chassis, with power supplied by the Cord’s ‘Lycoming’ V8 engine, supercharged by Andy Granatelli to product 190 bhp. This, combined with the Corsair’s aerodynamic shape, enabled the car to reach speeds of up to 115mph – quite an achievement in 1938.
 
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18.07.2006

Alongside the sheer wealth of modern machinery, the Goodwood Festival of Speed also displayed a fine selection of pioneer veteran racers, celebrating a century of Grand Prix racing and the early years of the Targa Florio

Photos © 2006 Interfuture Media/Italiaspeed