Goodwood Festival of Speed: Moving Motor Show

Lord March - and the McLaren F1 & MP4-12C - at this weeks Goodwood preview event.

Lord March has announced the Goodwood ‘Moving Motor Show’ will launch the day before this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.

The Goodwood Festival of Speed goes from strength to strength every year. Not content with a venue that creates a terrific experience not just for petrol-heads but for one and all, Goodwood looks to deliver more each year. And this year it’s going a step futher by introducing the very thing it’s existence is killing off – the Motor Show.

We’ve said many times that the traditional Motor Show is an endangered species. There will be a few motor shows that survive – probably one on each continent – but most will go the direction of the British Motor Show, consigned to history by the Internet and by real car experiences at events like Goodwood or Salon Prive in the UK and others round the world like Villa d’Este and Pebble Beach.

Lord Charles March – owner of Goodwood and the driving force behind the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the Goodwood Revival – sees the same end in sight for traditional car shows as we do. The venues are dull and uninteresting and there is precious little interaction between exhibitors and the public.

We’re lucky – we can go to press days – but unless you’re well-connected the traditional Motor Show seems to be about keeping you away from the product on display, instead of encouraging a hands-on from the public. So Lord March is introducing a Dynamic Motor Show concept to run the day before this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. Dubbed the ‘Moving Motor Show’ it will allow visitors not just to get up close and personal with the cars on display but also to drive them.

The Goodwood Moving Motor Show has set up an evaluation driving circuit where prospective buyers can try out manufacturers latest offerings on a route round Goodwood that includes part of the famous Goodwood hillclimb. Manufacturers displaying will be right across the board from eco-boxes to prestige cars and on up to Supercars. Which beats queueing in a sweaty hanger to be allowed a ‘Look but Don’t Touch’ glare from the pompous nobody policing the stands at the old-fashioned motor show.

More details on the makers attending when we get it, but the date – Thursday July 1st 2010 – for the first Goodwood Moving Motor Show is one for the diary.

As is the Goodwood Festival over the following three days.