Car Show or Costume Party? Yes, and It’s Amazing

This year marked my fourth trip to the Goodwood Revival. Or was it my fifth? Difficult to say, honestly, as the vintage car racing and costume extravaganza remains fabulous and essentially unchanged, year after year. I know for certain this is the third year in a row I’ve worn the same outfit, a pair of tan herringbone coveralls I found in a vintage shop in London’s Shoreditch borough with a Shell logo and the name “Chas” chainstitched over the left breast. Add in some oxblood Dr. Martens, and it’s all topped off by a jaunty cap. Well, two caps, one for each day of the Revival that I attend with our host, Subaru. Always Saturday and Sunday; never Friday.

My same but slightly different outfits are a good (if not forced) metaphor for the Revival itself. Little things will be different each year, but the big picture? It remains the same. The Duke of Richmond is wise not to change a thing. And I absolutely must keep going year after year.

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Real Racing!

I’ll receive a piece of hate mail or two for this next bit, but I stand by it. The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca features real cars and fake racing. (I’ve heard drivers say they’re told not to attempt a pass until Turn 4.) Whereas the Goodwood Revival features fake cars but real racing. No, not all of them are fake, as I’m sure the Minis, Ford Cortinas, and Lotus Climaxes are the genuine articles. But the Ferrari 250 GTO that blew its differential through its gas tank in 2023 was phony baloney. Can we really be mad that a million-dollar replica of a $70M car met its end with F1 driver Karun Chandhok driving the wheels off the thing? Naw.

Obviously, most of the cars are real, but don’t look too closely. Don’t believe me? Clock inside the eight-figure prancing horse cars, and, well, you won’t find a bunch of six-decade-old, hand-beaten aluminum bits. But, oh, how they go!

It’s hard to overstate just how superb, wild, and aggressive the racing is at the Goodwood Revival. The big race Sunday afternoon is called the TT Trophy. Please, name another race where you get nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, seven-time NASCAR Cup winner Jimmie Johnson, five-time Pikes Peak winner Romain Dumas, and three-time Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti all fighting flat-out in fire-spitting Cobras, grumpy Listers, and roaring Jag E-types. I’ll wait.

Allow me to restress the “real racing” part, as every person on the grid (including Adrian Newey in his Jaguar “Cheat-type,” highly modified machine that drew the ire of the duke himself this year) will happily write off their cars in search of the checkered flag. Or even third place. The race is 60 minutes of absolute pedal-to-the-metal madness; modern racing, with few exceptions, simply isn’t as good. The racing alone is exciting enough to nearly justify an annual trip to Old Blighty on its own.

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At Play in the Fields of the Duke

Great racing isn’t unique to the Goodwood Revival, but the number of folks putting on costumes is. The Revival is, in fact, the largest costumed gathering on earth. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Burning Man. When the weather permits, I’d guess 98 percent of the 140,000 attendees are in period-correct costume. That period being approximately WWII and thereabouts up until 1972. In 2023, it was so hot—over 90 degrees, a temperature England simply isn’t built for—that for the first time the dress code was relaxed. Lots of Brits and Germans were in shorts. Not a good look. What if you’re not in costume? Paid actors flit about and harangue you, “Good news, guv: The train with your luggage will be arriving shortly!” Serves the party poopers right.

Duck through the tunnel to get away from the cars, paddock, and track, and you’ll find yourself in a massive vintage marketplace. Need a saucy cap, an ascot, a vintage dress, a class on restoring vintage dresses, a mechanic’s suit, lapel pins, classic posters/signs, books, furniture, restomods, books on all of the above? It’s all there, cash or credit. This is perhaps the most unique aspect of the Revival—many of the attendees aren’t there for the cars! Crazy, I know. They just enjoy the cosplay.

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The Spitfires

The Goodwood estate was repurposed as an RAF airfield at the outbreak of World War II. Around noon on Sunday there’s always a break in the action where the organizers take a moment to honor some aspect of the big one. This year was in memory of the 80th anniversary of D-Day. It was especially fitting this time out, as our host Subaru had us stay at the new Raffles Old War Office hotel in London, the very building where Churchill and the British Empire essentially singlehandedly led the war against Nazi fascism until America joined the cause late in 1941. Moreover, it’s where the Allies planned Operation Overlord that led to the eventual invasion and liberation of Europe.

My father was obsessed by both the [American] Civil War and World War II, and the latter rubbed off on me. Especially because my great uncle, flight lieutenant William “Willie” Nelson DFC, was a highly decorated RAF pilot (DFC stands for Distinguished Flying Cross) who began WWII as a bomber pilot captaining a crew of five men aboard the ungainly Armstrong Whitworth A.W.38 Whitley. My great uncle’s No. 10 Squadron carried out the first allied bombings of German territory, and later, after the fall of Belgium and France, flew on the first strike against Germany itself. King George VI decorated him with the DFC personally. This made him a hero back in his hometown of Montreal, where he was lauded as “the first Hebrew Canadian over Germany” and instrumental in the CRAF’s recruiting efforts early in the war.

In an unusual move, Willie answered the call to become a Spitfire pilot, and by the end of the Battle of Britain he’d shot down five Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 109s (though the leader of No. 74 Squadron, Sailor Malan, credited him with six), and that officially made him an ace. While out on reconnaissance off Dover, Willie Nelson was attacked along with two other members of what was known as Tiger Squadron (still No. 74 Squadron). They were assailed from above and behind, never seeing their attackers. Injured, the other two RAF pilots survived the ambush. Neither my great uncle nor his plane was ever seen or found. Willie’s name can be found on the Battle of Britain monument located on the Thames in London, commemorating the heroic air campaign about which Churchill remarked, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

The above story means a great deal to me. As it happens, the Goodwood Revival is thick with Spitfires. Those wondrous flying machines are all over the Duke of Richmond’s estate, from the famous Barrel Bomber (a Spitfire that delivered kegs of beer to parched troops in France at war’s end) to early Mk1 and Mk2 planes like Willie would have flown. I especially enjoy a few silent, teary moments of reflection in front of those awesome fighting machines, a ritual I would love to continue for years to come.

A few years ago, we were helicoptering into Goodwood (as you do) when a command came over our headsets, “Land immediately, Spitfires airborne!” As we began a rapid descent, I looked left and saw three Spitfires 1,000 yards out, majestically flying in V-spec formation (two in front, one behind) right toward us. I was awed. It was a rare sight I’ll always remember and cherish. And I realized that the last people who had this view of these planes from this altitude had been German. Perhaps some had met my great uncle Willie Nelson?

You Have to Go

Fast cars, cool costumes, and righteous weapons of war—does it get any better? That’s the crazy part about the Goodwood Revival, it does indeed seem to get better year after year. The basic formula remains unchanged, but the details, the little things, the magic dust the duke’s people sprinkle on everything, it all keeps improving. Was 2024 the best Revival yet? Obviously, although odds are high that 2025 will be even better. I’ve had some friends and colleagues that move in the big car show circles claim the Revival is their favorite annual automotive event. My highly personal reflections in front of old warplanes notwithstanding, while the Goodwood Revival is superlative, it’s not the best. I’d give the nod to Pebble Beach Car Week as the ultimate yearly automotive must-do. Even though the racing’s not as good, there’s just so much more going on at Pebble. And at least two of the days (The Quail and the Concours d’Élégance) count as costume days.

Which isn’t intended to take a thing away from the Goodwood Revival, as it’s simply fabulous. The scope is just different. Perhaps it’s a matter of familiarity on my part, as 2024 marked my fourteenth visit to Pebble Beach for Car Week against just my fourth (or is that fifth?) to the Goodwood Revival. But who cares how I rank things? You simply must go. I’ll see you there.