Goodwood Vol 1-4
Full Throttle by Blackbird Automotive follows on the heels of 2016’s successful Festival of Speed, taking in the sights, sounds and stories of one of the world’s most well-known and highly-regarded motoring events. Published in official partnership with the Goodwood Road Racing Club, it follows on from the Festival of Speed’s theme – “Full Throttle – The Endless Pursuit Of Power”, exploring the bygone eras of motorsport where power reigned supreme. Opening with a foreword by Lord March himself, the volume attempts to encapsulate the spirit of the Festival of Speed with features on the aerodynamic artistry of F1 designer Gordon Murray and his championship winning BT52 Formula One car – equipped with the most powerful F1 engine ever built, the thunderous Can-Am and Group B icons of speed and the mind behind Goodwood’s famous towering sculptures, Gerry Judah.
Forty years on from his World Championship win, we also look back at the extroverted, 0-100 life of James Hunt, before taking in the wild world of 1980s turbo-era Formula 1 and the incredibly-rare beauty of BMW’s 328MM and Renault’s former legends of speed. The volume rounds out with a quick retrospective of Heuer’s new comeback kid – the Autavia, along with short stories from Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason, Top Gear Editor-in-Chief Charlie Turner and the legendary Derek Bell.
GOODWOOD VOL 02: THE RETURN TO POWER
The incredible atmosphere and sheer ‘wow-factor’ of The Goodwood Revival is something that is near impossible to accurately explain or portray in any volume of work, in any form of media; the greatest nostalgic motorsport event the world has ever seen. Goodwood Vol 02: The Return to Power by Blackbird Automotive is as close to experiencing and understanding the soul of this incredible event as is possible.
Published in official partnership with the Goodwood Road Racing Company, Goodwood Vol 02 focuses on the theme of pioneers – not only those of the race track, but the successes and failures of engineers, designers, artists and personalities of 1966 and onwards in an effort to push the boundaries. Opening with a look into BRM’s ill-fated but fascinating experimental H16 engine built for the ‘66 season, we then turn our attention to the culture-shock that was the Lamborghini Miura – fifty years old this year. Volume 02 travels back to 1966 to also bask in the glory of Sir Jack Brabham’s third and final world championship win in his own Repco-powered F1 car, and with the smell of cash burning faintly in the background, we wince and appreciate the rivalry between two of the most desirable cars ever produced – the Ferrari 250 GTO and Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato – and their coming together in spectacular fashion at Goodwood half a century ago.
The Revival isn’t just about the cars though; it’s a recipe that also includes an equal measure of motorcycles, planes and people. Volume 02 celebrates that diversity with features on the late, great Barry Sheene, aviation pioneer and former Goodwood patriarch Freddie March’s obsession with the aeroplane and the indelible stamp it left on the circuit’s history, and stories from the Humans of Goodwood – the people who bring the event to life – giving us their take on what makes the Revival what it is.
GOODWOOD VOL 03: PEAKS OF PERFORMANCE
The Goodwood Festival of Speed might just be the greatest motoring event on earth. Goodwood Vol 03: Peaks Of Performance, is published in official partnership with the Goodwood Road Racing Company, and aims to capture all that greatness within 144 pages of ultra-high quality print, utilising the best writers, photographers and artists in the industry.
As with the event itself, Vol 03 focuses on motorsport’s ‘peaks of performance’. The game-changing moments, cars and people that, in their own ways, changed the automotive landscape forever.
This begins with Ferrari’s indelible 250 series, produced from 1953 to 1964 and celebrated at the Festival of Speed with a special display on the Cartier Lawn. This is a class of cars that put the Cavallino within reach of perhaps not the every man, but the well-heeled every man. We also celebrate the fiftieth birthday of the iconic Lotus 49, perhaps the purest representation of raw speed ever to hit the Formula One circuit, by delving deep into the story of its conception, evolution and world-conquering performance at the hands the some of the sport’s greatest names.
Great names are certainly not in short supply for Vol 03; nine-time Le Mans victor Tom Kristensen lets us in on his trade secrets, the world’s pre-eminent industrial designer Marc Newson discusses automotive beauty and we revisit a fascinating conversation with the now sadly-departed John Surtees, in which he speaks candidly about missed opportunities and just what it takes to be a champion on two and four wheels.
Vol 03 is well rounded off by a look at the influential Brooklands Raceway on its 110th birthday – a hallowed ground that shaped and moulded British motorsport – and the beasts that roamed it, as well as Alfa Romeo’s incredible 155 DTM championship dominator and the sad tale of a near-forgotten industry heavyweight in Delage Motorcars.
GOODWOOD VOL 04: RISK AND REWARD
There’s something distinctly magical about the Goodwood Revival. The atmosphere, the fashion, the buzzing pits and the door-to-door action on track give this yearly motor racing festival its own unique identity. Goodwood Volume 04: Risk and Reward distills all that magic into a beautifully-crafted publication — 160 pages filled with the people, the stories and the incredible cars that make the Goodwood Revival what it is.
Our fourth volume in the Goodwood series asks the questions that are as old as motorsport itself – how does one balance risk and reward? What is a driver willing to put on the line in the pursuit of glory, and when is enough, enough?
In search of answers, we first look at the life of the great Italian pilota Alberto Ascari in an attempt to understand the intimate relationship between risk, reward and fate. The Revival’s jaw-dropping Kinrara Trophy, which sees some of the world’s most valuable cars battling wheel-to-wheel around Goodwood’s historic circuit, also tempts fate in its own way — we search for the kind of nerves it takes to push these irreplaceable machines to their very limits.
Some of the UK’s greatest motoring pioneers follow next — the Le Mans-dominating Ecurie Ecosse, the doggedly-determined TVR and the story behind 1957’s electrifying British GP at Aintree that saw Britain take its first Grand Prix win with Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks at the wheel of a very English Vanwall.
Volume 04 rounds out with a love letter to the quintessential Italian car, the Fiat 500, as well as a look back at the last two decades of the Goodwood Revival through the eyes of a racer, and plenty more.