An accident has spoiled Charles March’s otherwise impressive first attempt at replacing the traditional British Motor Show.
Nearly 30,000 visitors turned out to sample Goodwood’s inaugural Thursday manufacturer preview day for the annual Festival of Speed today – an event billed as the Goodwood Moving Motor Show.
See pics of the star cars of the Moving Motor Show in action at Goodwood
Although there were fears that access to test drives would be restricted to invited guests only, Autocar can confirm that several manufacturers are indeed allocating slots to the general public for a drive up the famous Goodwood hillclimb circuit, on a first come first served basis.
After several hours of successful test drives this morning however, all running was abruptly interrupted at 12.40pm after an accident occurred in Goodwood’s Moving Motor Show pavillion itself.
One of Honda’s Civic Type-R test cars collided with two stationary Jaguars before careering into a wall. Four bystanders were injured in the accident, none of them seriously.
The incident will be ammunition to those who warned that the Moving Motor Show, like any event involving moving cars and crowds of people sharing the same confined space, would be difficult to manage safely.
In reality, the accident would have been difficult to predict, and its fallout could have been much worse. The driver of the Honda that crashed blacked out just after he started the car, which caused him to lose control at low speed.
The Moving Motor Show was reopened just before 3.00pm this afternoon, after the damaged areas of the pavillion itself had been cleared and a police enquiry concluded.
More than twenty manufacturers are taking part in Moving Motor Show, most of them providing test drives to media, invited VIPS and interested customers only. Audi, Mazda, Volvo, Alfa Romeo and Peugeot are also seeking to accommodate requests to drive from show-goers, however.
“We’ve had a very positive reaction to the idea of a Festival preview day from both manufacturers and the public alike,†said Goodwood PR man Gary Axon.
“We sold more than 15,000 £20 tickets for the day to members of the public, on top of the 11,000 invitational tickets that manufacturers have given out, and were pleased to see people queueing to get into the show at 7am this morning.
“Many of the visitors who’ve come are treating the day simply as an extension of the regular festival: as a chance to look around the attractions while it’s quieter than it will be for the rest of the weekend, and for less than the regular admission price.
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Re: Live at Goodwood
It already had a broken wing before deciding it would cross the track (why did the pigeon cross the road?), then took a direct hit from a F1 car at flat chat. The hit took it's tail feathers off [which meant it looked like a baboon apparently], caused a bit of a flap then it just went on wandering around eating things from the bales. Some of my colleagues from the next post up caught it and put it somewhere a bit safer - a grassy area near to the F1 paddock assembly area - and it was never seen again. I was marshalling on Crossing 5 so got a fairly good view of it, especially when it came right up to our post. We didn't want to chase it in case it went into the track and caused a problem - which in the end it did anyway. Unlike the Pigeon us marshals also have a healthy sense of self preservation so we didn't want to put ourselves in the path of a F1 car! I did have one spectator come up and offer to wring it's neck, Which was slightly bizzare. Nothing like this has ever happened to me in 6 years of Marshalling!
Re: Live at Goodwood
Wonder what happened to the pigeon that was hit by a F1 car at speed on Friday? It lost a lot of feathers (and dignity) but walked away.
I asked personnel on the Audi stand how much the stand cost. No reply. My guess, nearly a million (Euros)!
Re: Live at Goodwood
I was lucky enough to get free tickets courtesy of Mazda. We arrived around 10.30am and had to twist arms to get to drive an MX5 up the track - the fact we have just ordered one helped us secure a so called 'VIP' slot - otherwise they were booked out. Its a shame there was an accident - and we did wonder what had occured. Hopefully not many people missed out because of this.
I hope they learn form this years MMS - and decide to do it again, and hopefully expand it to so there are more opportunities to drive different cars. Certainly it looked more organised as the day went - it was a terrifying mix of cars, pedestrians, and nervous drivers to start with!
I have to say the little drive back throught the Goodwood estate was as much fun as the run on the track itself.
Looking forward to the arrival of our new Mazda (although I would have loved another Alfa, if they had a credible 2 seater sports car - shame - maybe when the new rear drive Spider is out in a couple of years...)
A great day - and good to see Alfa centre stage at such a big event. The Giullietta looked stunning on the track.