The Goodwood Festival of Speed is done and dusted for another year, with a number of firsts and significant debuts lighting up the event's 25th anniversary. Autonomous technology and electric motors brought cutting-edge vehicle tech to the front of the conversation, but there was still plenty of eye candy about for lovers of traditional automotive engineering.
Porsche claimed center stage at the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed (FoS), where the German automaker celebrated its 70th birthday. This year's front lawn instalment took the shape of a towering six-pointed sculpture, with an iconic Porsche perched on the end of each.
And this sculpture wasn't the only attraction to turn heads towards the sky, with David Mayman's JB11 jetpack lifting off over the lawn in front of Goodwood House and completing its first ever European flight. The FoS Future Lab, with its interactive installations focusing on space, autonomous vehicles, personal flight and robotics also demonstrated the direction transport may be heading.
If the Future Lab gave a taste of this future, two advanced cars taking to the track outside offered a complete mouthful. One was Volkswagen's I.D. R Pikes Peak, which, fresh from conquering the hill climb of the same name, smashed the record for an electric car in the Goodwood Hill Climb with a 43.86-second ascent, the third fastest of any car in the event's history.
The other was Roborace's Robocar, which became the first fully autonomous electric race car to successfully complete the hill climb. The vehicle leant on LiDAR, radar, GPS, ultrasonic sensors and cameras to navigate around bales, flint walls and along the winding road on its way up the hill without a human driver.
Goodwood's Silver Jubilee played host to iconic race cars and modern day motoring marvels, with legendary Mercedes Silver Arrows of the 30s and 50s, classic Porsches, and McLaren's Senna all part of the mix.
Among the notable debuts were Noble Automotive's entry level M500, the new Toyota Supra and Steve McQueen's legendary Ford Mustang Bullitt making its first appearance outside the US alongside Ford's all new special edition Mustang Bullitt. Aston Martin also debuted a one-off, beefed up Cygnet with a V8 beneath the bonnet.
To see these and some of the action from the track, jump on into our Goodwood Festival of Speed photo gallery, while the video below shows the Robocar in action.
Source: Goodwood
