The Goodwood Revival goes green

Ask the dapper 11th Duke of Richmond to name his all-time favourite car, and one of motorsport’s most affable characters suddenly plays coy.

The brains behind the Goodwood Revival has been the proud owner of cars that include a Lancia Aurelia, a Rolls-Royce Ghost and a Porsche 911 GT2, and keeps an enviable collection of vehicles at his country pile in West Sussex – which makes the decision to go green at this year’s event even more surprising.

‘It’s an opportunity to enjoy loud classic cars, fancy food and wear vintage clothing’

The Duke – Charles Gordon Lennox, 69 – whose family have owned the 12,000-acre Goodwood estate for more than 300 years, has announced that this month’s Revival, a three-day drive down memory lane in period garb, will be the world’s first historic race meeting that is powered exclusively with sustainable fuel.

That’s no mean feat, especially as many of the sports cars hurtling around Goodwood Motor Circuit date back more than 50 years. Driven by highly tuned engines not designed for synthetic fuel, expect a few hiccups on a starting grid packed with classics worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

The smell of octane was first replaced with the whiff of intrigue at last year’s Revival, when 150,000 enthusiasts watched a race powered using sustainable fuel. The Fordwater Trophy for early Porsche 911s included the 2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button and passed without a hitch.

Button praised the initiative: "What’s so exciting about these fuels is that they can guarantee the future of historic racing, enabling us to enjoy combustion engine cars for years to come."

His comments were backed by comedian Rowan Atkinson, who also raced the Goodwood track in a Jaguar Mk VII using green fuel. The Mr Bean star said synthetics were "superior in every way" to petrol.

While a Revival audience might turn the air blue if a classic car converted to battery power took to the track, the green fuel designed for combustion engines doesn’t require any mechanical modifications.

Every race will be fuelled in the same way. Goodwood does not specify a particular make of fuel – only that it must be made from 70% sustainable components. The key to making an e-fuel is to use waste, rather than growing crops specially, so it can be derived from a variety of ingredients – sugar beet, for example.

This year’s Revival also showcases the life of the legendary John Surtees. The eight-time world champion, who died in 2017, was a patron of the first Goodwood Festival of Speed in 1993.

‘With engines not designed for synthetic fuel, expect a few hiccups on the starting grid’

The son of a south London motorcycle dealer, Surtees won seven championships on motorbikes before making the switch to cars. He won the Formula One title 60 years ago: the only man to win on two and on four wheels.

The Duke says: "John was a huge figure in the history of Goodwood Circuit and deeply involved with the Festival of Speed from the start. He was an exceptional racer and a great friend."

Surtees tested his first car at Goodwood in 1959, before making his inaugural appearance the following year in a Cooper Formula Junior. He finished second behind the legendary Jim Clark.

Competitive on track, Surtees stayed calm and gentle off it and his association with Goodwood continued for decades.

Goodwood motor circuit opened 11 years before Surtees’ test drive, in 1948, and the British public was quick to get involved. Deprived of racing during the Second World War with the closure of Brooklands circuit in 1939, more than 15,000 spectators watched the country’s first professionally organised, post-war driving event.

(In fact, Goodwood was originally a military airfield and served as a Battle of Britain base, from which Douglas Bader flew his last sortie.)

It eventually closed in 1966 but continued in use as a demanding test track. Among the drivers who perished on the circuit was Bruce McLaren, who not only designed but raced, engineered and invented racing cars. He died in 1970 test-driving his M8D Can-Am car.

The car enthusiast’s Glastonbury, the Revival is an opportunity to enjoy loud classic cars and fancy food. The event draws huge crowds to the Sussex countryside all in vintage clothing.

Remember: if you don’t dress up, you won’t be in pole position at one of the great British summer events.