LONDON: This 2019 edition of the Festival of Speed, which brings together some of racing history's most illustrious machines for a yearly celebration of speed, will be taking place at England's Goodwood Estate from today to Sunday. More than ever, the track's record will be challenged under the unequivocal theme of this year's event: "Speed Kings."
The festival's organisers hope to gather a collection of cars that are fast enough to beat the record of the famous hill-climbing race established at Goodwood over 20 years ago by a McLaren-Mercedes MP4/13.
Over the four days of the event, race cars both antique and high-tech, supercars and concepts of all kinds will be tearing up the pavement one by one, with the fastest cars competing against one another on the Sunday. The circuit's record, which is still held by the McLaren-Mercedes MP4/13, was almost beat in 2018 by the all-electric Volkswagen I.D. R Pikes Peak.
This year, a special tribute will be paid to Sir Jackie Stewart on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his first Formula 1 World Champion win, but also his 80th birthday.
This electric atmosphere will be the perfect setting for the grand unveiling of number of models, such as a 1005-electric Ford Mustang (in a special edition of 499 units produced by British outfit Charge), which will start at £300,000 (RM1.6mil).
Elsewhere, a mysterious, ultra high-performance Ford GT is slated to be announced during the festival. Lexus will also take the opportunity to unveil its series LC Cabriolet, the offspring of the namesake concept car it showed off early this year, while Honda will be exposing an almost-there prototype of its first 100% electric urban car. Last but not least, Toyota will be presenting its GR Supra GT4 concept alongside the TS050, which was the big winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The GR Supra GT4 will go into production and start selling in 2020.
This edition will also be marked by a number of firsts, such as The Arena, a space dedicated to extreme demonstrations, with daredevils doing their thing on two and four wheels. There will also be a space dedicated to e-sports.
The festival coverage would be streamed live on its YouTube channel.
