The annual Goodwood Festival of Speed was the usual massive, glossy, high-budget, posh petrolhead blowout. Our man on the spot, Alan Dowds reports on last month’s shindig.
With the 75th anniversary of Formula One taking centre stage, bikes had a slightly smaller role than usual, at last month’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. But there were still plenty of highlights for two-wheel fans, including an homage to King Carl Fogarty, 30 years on from his second WSBK title in 1995. Foggy was guest of honour, riding one of his famous Ducati title-winning world superbikes up the legendary hillclimb course.
On a slightly more prosaic front, both Honda and BMW had impressive motorcycle displays as part of their main four-wheeled mega-stands. Honda had a “movies” theme for its stand, where it showed off its electrically supercharged V3 engine and chassis prototype for the first time in the UK. The stand also celebrated 50 years of the Gold Wing, and the firm’s first battery-powered machines – the EV Fun Concept and Urban EV Concept – were also on show. Meanwhile, at the hillclimb, John McGuinness rode his limited-edition Fireblade as part of the WSBK superbike celebrations.
Hans de Jaeger, senior VP, Honda Motor Europe, said: “We are excited to return to the Goodwood Festival of Speed with a dynamic pan-brand showcase of everything Honda has to offer our European customers. Our business is about more than our products alone, but how our customers feel when they are using them, and this has been the inspiration behind our stand design this year.”
Our man Dowds got a proper bucket-list ride at Goodwood: a run up the hill on the Norton NRS588 White Charger – the original 1992 TT winning rotary ridden by Steve Hislop. “It was a last-minute thing,” said Dowds. “So I didn’t have time to be as terrified as I should have been on such a historic machine. It’s like riding a mad old two-stroke, with zero engine braking. But such an amazing thing to be on.”BMW had a full range of premium M-machines on its enormous stand. The firm’s Concept RR superbike prototype was also there and was ridden up the hill by Motorrad CEO Markus Flasch.
Harley’s electric offshoot, LiveWire, was in attendance, showing off the new S2 Alpinista battery-powered bike. LiveWire Europe marketing manager Niels Kleinlooh said: “We attended Goodwood for the first time in 2022, where we took our custom LiveWire ONE up the hill. This year we return to give the public a chance to see our brand-new LiveWire S2 Alpinista. We not only had Shaun and Aaron Guardado, brothers and owners of the Suicide Machine Company, to demonstrate the capabilities of the bike, but we also offered eight journalists the chance to ride our bike up the hill.”
The motorcycle mix was rounded off by Royal Enfield, which showcased a series of custom bikes on the course, and the National Motorcycle Museum, which brought the impressive Norton Nemesis V8 and other historic machines to participate in the hillclimb.