Goodwood FoS really does create sales for supercar makers

Is the Goodwood Festival of Speed just an excuse for petrolheads to gather, or do supercar makers actually see sales rise as a result?

If you’re a real petrolhead, there really is no better car show on earth than the Goodwood Festival of Speed (which starts this weekend).

Yes, other car shows offer some of what Goodwood does – Villa D’Este, Pebble Beach and Salon Prive are all very good – but none have the depth of petrolhead goodness you’ll find on offer at Goodwood.

But is the Festival of Speed just an excuse for the greatest car makers on the planet to show off their wares – old and new, road and track – to an enormous crowd of like-minded visitors, or do they also see a real benefit in sales from a strong outing at Goodwood?

We figured the best way to find out was not to trawl round high-end dealers, but to ask someone who deals with financing the sort of cars most of us can only dream of owning.

So we talked to Tim Marlow at *Bridford Financial, one of the biggest suppliers of prestige car finance in the UK, and asked if he could shed any light on the sales impact of the Goodwood FoS. And he could.

According to Tim, in the month following Goodwood last year, Bridford financed more than twice as many Ferraris, Bentleys and Maseratis (as well as marked rises in other high-end cars) as in any other month of the year, including after other major motor shows.

So it’s clear that car makers are at Goodwood not just for the fun, but also for the money. And who can blame them? If Goodwood gives car makers the chance to showcase the best of their cars and results in sales it’s a win for everyone.

Just out of interest we asked Tim what he was expecting to be the big sellers after Goodwood this year. His top tips were the new Bentley Continental GT Speed and the new Aston Martin Vanquish (assuming AM confirm it’s going).

We’ll check back in a month or so to see if he was right.