Shut down by bad weather for the first time in its history, this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed was still one of the largest ever, showcasing highly anticipated models making their first public appearances. Showgoers were also able to see many of these debut machines being put to the test on the notorious Goodwood Hillclimb.
Here are our top 10 moments of the 2023 Goodwood Festival of Speed Show:
We’ve all seen the teaser shots of the Project V, however new Caterham's don’t come around all that often so this was something we were excited about. Especially since the new car was a radical departure from the Company’s traditional semi-open-wheel configuration.
As the official race seat supplier to Caterham, we were keen to check out the much talked about 2+1 seating configuration which features a single rear seat built into the interior surround. Very unusual, but pretty cool - and a more conventional 2+2 option is apparently available if it’s not to your taste.
Tillett has supported Vettel with seats and protection equipment since his days in karting, so we were especially keen to see him go up the hill. Vettel got back behind the wheel of Nigel Mansell‘s ‘Red Five’ Williams FW14B from 1992, a car from his own personal collection. Watch his run by clicking here.
Named after the car's race number, ‘Red Five’ was one of the most sophisticated cars to ever compete in F1. Despite being worth nearly £3m, Vettel treated the fans to a great run - including a tyre-smoking doughnut!
Tillett seats are a very popular upgrade amongst Ferrari Challenge drivers, so it was great to see Andrew Morrow put his 488 Challenge into the top 10 of the hillclimb results. Andrew crossed the line in 49.88 seconds, pretty close to the Ford Puma WRC car driven by Adrien Fourmaux and beating Olaf Mathney in the Porsche 911 GT2 RS Clubsport 25.
If you’re a fan of the Ferrari Challenge Series you might also be interested in the Bell Sport Challenge Series, the next event is at Brands Hatch Indy on the 13th August, find out more here.
This year's festival had a Porsche-themed central feature, proudly showcasing 911s, endurance racers, and the 718/2 grand prix car, evoking both nostalgia and admiration. The first brand to create the central feature four times, this year's show marked Porsche’s 75th anniversary of its first sports car. We think it looked amazing.
Among the many new vehicles that caught our attention were several striking supercars, including the new Lamborghini Revuelto and Pagani Utopia. There was also a totally unique Ferrari - the KC23, watch it making it's debut run on the Hillclimb by clicking here. Commissioned by "one very imaginative, passionate and exacting customer", the car isn’t a concept, instead it’s the latest creation from Ferrari’s Special Projects programme. The customer (and the price) have not been revealed.
Most of Tillett’s road car customers are obsessed with upgrading their cars, and in addition to seat upgrades, we have also seen some pretty extreme engine mods - and even engine swaps. However, we’ve never seen anything quite like this. You’re looking at one of a series of limited edition Porsche 911’s built by Lazante, featuring TAG Turbo Formula One engines.
This particular car, ‘SJ87’ has been created in collaboration with Ex-F1 star Stefan Johansson and the 87 refers to the fact it’s the very engine he raced in the 1987 Austrian Grand Prix - then fitted to his McLaren MP4/3. Since quitting racing, Stefan is now an artist, and he created the livery himself. Watch it's Hillclimb run by clicking here.
Probably the main event for most fans, the famous Goodwood Hillclimb always delivers. This year was no exception, although the stunning McLaren Solus GT was unable to beat the record time set in 2022 by Max Chilton in an electric McMurtry Spéirling at 39.081 seconds. Watch the record run by clicking here.
You may not know that the record had been held by Nick Heidfeld for 23 years before being broken last year. Set in an F1 car, Nick’s 41.6 second run is still the second fastest time up the hill, and will remain the fastest in an F1 car, as they are no longer permitted to do official timed runs due to safety concerns.
Here’s the official top 10 Goodwood Hillclimb results:
As a fellow British automotive technology Company, Tillett are big fans (no pun intended!) of McMurty. If you’ve not seen it before, watch this video of the McMurtry Spéirling going into the Goodwood history books with its record-smashing run up the Hill.
This year, it was time for the brand to reveal the first prototype of its production version of that car – the Spéirling Pure. The track-only car will be available to 100 customers in Pure form, costing from £820,000 plus taxes.
Also celebrating its 75th anniversary year was Lotus. Tillett are pretty famous in the world of Lotus, Tillett seats being particularly sought after by Elise and Exige owners due to their suitability for their tight cabin spaces.
Lotus chose this year to showcase its new all-electric hyper-SUV Eletre, which made its debut on the iconic Goodwood Hill Climb.
There was also the global launch of the eagerly anticipated Emira 2.0-litre four-cylinder ICE car, and the all-electric Lotus Evija hypercar - their first Lotus road car to feature a one-piece carbon fibre monocoque chassis.
Tillett has spent many years studying crashes in the process of developing products designed specifically to withstand them, so we can’t let this roundup go without mentioning this year's spills.
The festival opened with a bale-exploding crash as Hyundai's new RN22E went straight on at peed into the straw. The front end looked like it was pretty much gone as they pulled it out, but thankfully nobody was injured. You can watch the crash by clicking here.
A very scary incident later occurred when a Jaguar MK1 lost its left-rear wheel, which bounced at high speed over the bales and into the crowd. The exact number of people affected wasn't revealed, but officials said shortly after they were back and "enjoying the event."
Sunday witnessed a string of unfortunate mishaps, with multiple cars crashing out up the hill. These included a Mercedes-AMG GT, BMW M1, Porsche 911 GT1, and the 1990 Leyton House CG901, an early F1 car design by Adrian Newey. Again, thankfully there were no serious injuries.
Tillett seats look, feel and perform differently to any other seat on the market today. This is thanks to a unique (and closely guarded) manufacturing system which is part craftsmanship, part technical know-how and part materials technology.
From research and design to prototype testing and manufacture by hand - every step of our process is rooted in no-compromise quality.
