The Goodwood Festival of Speed, one of the most anticipated automotive events in the world takes place in United Kingdom’s Goodwood house. The event is a festival of speed (as the name suggests) and sees cars and motor sport enthusiasts at the largest event of its kind, gathering the planet's rarest and most glamorous cars.
Cars at Goodwood also take part in a hill climb run to clock the fastest time. Many do this in order to prove their car’s abilities, especially among restored classics.
This year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed also saw the progress of electric cars have made with the two fastest cars to cover the 1.16 miles course being battery powered.
Here is a handful of the top cars from Goodwood.
Nio EP9
Remember the Nio EP9, the electric car that went around the famed Nurburgring circuit in March 2017 in 6 minutes and 45 seconds? This time it has clocked its fastest time at Goodwood.
The Nio EP9 was the second fastest car to cover the course. It completed the course in a 44.32 seconds to come second to only the Volkswagen ID R Pikes Peak, the car specially developed for the Pikes Peak hill climb.
The Nio EP9 is a 1 MW supercar with 265 miles range (424 Km) and a top speed of 194 Mph (310 Kmph). The 1 MW electric motor on the EP9 makes a humongous 1,342 bhp of power. The car will soon be in production and will retail at around £1.4million.
Roborace Self-Driving Car
This has to be the most interesting thing seen at this year's GoodWood Festival of Speed. The Roborace self-driving car was all the rage as it did a hill climb on its own - driverless. This car showed us a glimpse into what the future beholds.
This becomes the first car ever to go around the 1.16 mile course without a human on-board. The car uses artificial intelligence to drive itself and does not have a steering and there is no place to accommodate a human. The car was however, programmed for the route by information from a second human-driven Robocar that did a recce run.
It was limited to 120km/h for the hill climb, but the car can very well do 200 Mph (320km/h approx), according to Roborace.
Toyota Supra Prototype
One of the most-loved cars of the 2000's, the Supra will soon get new life. Not a lot is known about the new Supra except for that it might share the platform with the upcoming BMW Z4. The car showcased at the festival of speed was a camouflaged unit of the upcoming car.
The refreshed Supra will have an inline six-cylinder engine that will power the rear wheels. The numbers have also been a subject of speculation, but reports suggest that the new car will have somewhere around 335 bhp. To put it in perspective, the 1993 Supra turbo was 326bhp, the new car will aim to beat that number when it comes into production.
Vazirani Shul
The Shul is India's first ever hyper-car, made by Mumbai based Vazirani automotive.
This concept is powered by one jet turbine engine and four electric motors for each of the four wheels to enable independent torque vectoring.
A carbon fibre tub chassis and other carbon elements as well as the light batteries keep the weight low. No technical specifications are forthcoming about the car yet. We only know that even though the company has its roots in India, the car is designed in California. This company is so new that it doesn't even have a manufacturing facility yet.
The development has been supported by tyre company Michelin which is why the car was showcased at the Michelin stand at Goodwood.
With the Shul (pronounced 'shool'), India might have marked its place in a different market altogether.
Singer DLS 911
The result of Singer and William's Dynamic Lightweight Study, the DLS is a restored 964 Porsche 911 infused with Formula 1 technology and is developed in partnership with Williams.
The DLS is an air-cooled 911 with a 4-litre high revving naturally aspirated 500bhp engine with a magnesium fan and carbon fibre components. It has a manually adjustable suspension.
The car has been built with spectacular attention to detail and is more focused towards aerodynamics, making the car look beautiful. This car will have a very limited production of only 75 units.
McLaren 600LT
The second car in Mclaren's long tail line, the 600LT is based on the smaller 570S.
The 205 Mph car is 23 percent new and 96 Kg lighter than the 570S. According to Mclaren, it will also be faster than the 675LT around the track.
Making 600PS of power and 620Nm torque and being the lightest car in Mclaren's super sport series, the 600LT goes from 0-100 Kmph in 2.9 seconds and will touch 200 Kmph in 8.2 seconds from standstill.
The coolest thing about this car however, is its exhaust pipes. The outlets on the 600LT are on top of the rear-placed engine bay (like the Porsche 918 spyder).
Volkswagen ID R Pikes Peak
The king of hill climb, this electric car has put an end to all skepticism towards electric cars not being able to match the internal combustion performance. The Volkswagen ID R was the fastest car in not just the Goodwood festival of speed, but also at this year's Pikes Peak run where it also made a new record of covering the 12.4 mile course.
The electric car clocked the 1.16 mile course in 43.86 seconds, beating the Nio EP9 by less than a second.
The Volkswagen ID R Pikes Peak was built specifically for the Pikes Peak run. The electric motor on the ID R produces 680 bhp of power and about 650 Nm torque, to propel it to 100 kmph from standstill in 2.25 seconds. The car weighs only 1,099 Kg.
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