Petrolhead revisited

AS youthful music fans headed to Glastonbury for the last weekend in June, older and more well-heeled festival-goers keyed a different destination into their satnavs. The Goodwood Festival of Speed, held annually since 1993 in the grounds of a stately home in West Sussex, is petrolhead heaven. Hundreds of racing cars spanning the decades are on display and noisily burn rubber on the “hill climb” course, a racetrack. But alongside the supercars and classic vehicles are more humdrum machines, for Goodwood has inadvertently assumed the role of hosting Britain’s national motor show.

Cavernous venues in London, at Olympia and Earl’s Court, and later Birmingham, used to host the more traditional event in the mould of the big international shows staged in Geneva or Detroit. But the last of these biannual gatherings took place in London’s Docklands in 2008. The next was a victim of belt-tightening in the wake of the financial crisis, and although only Germans buy more cars in Europe and production in the UK is set to hit a record high in 2017 an “official” British motor show has failed to get back on the road. One reason for this is that carmakers prefer to champion national brands at home. The vast halls of Frankfurt are stuffed with models made by VW, Mercedes and BMW. In Paris French cars command acres of floorspace despite paltry worldwide sales. But Japan’s Nissan is Britain biggest carmaker, Jaguar Land Rover is owned by Indians and Mini and Bentley by Germans.

Olympia’s loss has been Goodwood’s gain. What began as a minor add-on to the main event has grown in recent years. Carmakers are parking on the grounds in strength to take advantage of a guaranteed audience over the weekend of some 200,000 car-nuts who have come to ogle rare machines and meet the stars of racing and rally driving. This year General Motors turned up in force for the first time, showing off Chevrolet’s muscle cars, and Vauxhall provided a family zone with miniature racing cars and a climbing wall. Jaguar Land Rover, with an edifice the size of a small block of flats, had an obstacle course that punters could gleefully tackle in a Range Rover.

In any case, carmakers are falling out of love with the bigger car shows. They are expensive and frequent. At least 18 of them take place around the world annually. The stands, vast structures that house meeting rooms, cafés and lounges, as well as displaying highly polished cars, cost at least $1.5m per show. That mounts up for a multi-brand firm like Fiat Chrysler, that has to promote Jeep, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Dodge and Lancia along with its main marques.

In any case, there are now far cheaper ways to market cars. Customers do most research on the internet rather than kicking tyres. Car dealers are increasingly displaying cars in shopping centres or pop-up showrooms, where digital technology replaces physical vehicles. Indeed, most agree that Goodwood is all the motor show that Britain needs. A new London Motor Show is planned in Battersea Park in May next year, but it is unclear how many carmakers will turn up. Tim Tozer, the boss of Vauxhall, reckons that Goodwood makes other motor shows look “boring”. And if you are showing off the epitomes of British-built automotive excellence, such as Jaguars or Bentleys, what better backdrop than an English country house?