GOODWOOD REVIVAL 2011
The Goodwood Revival is, for many classic car lovers, the high point of every year. After our unsuccessful attempt in 2010 (click here to see why...) Anna and I decided to try again. We planned everything in advance and after a thorough testing of our 409, we departed from Bologna Wednesday 14 September at 9 a.m.
The first leg of the journey took us, as usual, to Alsace. Our favorite restaurant, the Auberge de l'Ill in Illhaeusern, was unfortunately fully booked since months (why?) so we chose another Michelin-starred restaurant, 'Le Cygne' in Gundershoffen, 790 kms from Bologna. On paper, it was a 8-hours trip; it turned out to be more than 10 hours as we met horrible traffic queues in Milan, Luzern, Basel and Strasbourg. The good thing that after so much work on the 409's cooling system, the temperature never rose over 100°C.
Le Cygne is connected to a splendidly cozy small hotel nearby, 'Le Moulin'. The dinner at the former was memorable, as you can see in the left picture above; I never tasted a better kidney pie (and I love kidneys). The breakfast at the Moulin was as good as you would expect from a small, sophisticated relais in Alsace
This is a fairytale scenery; just take a look at the garage that they had kindly reserved, following my request, for our 'voiture classique'
A really wonderful garage in the unmistakable style of Alsace's maisons à colombages
This is the yard in front of the hotel. A corner of Paradise on Earth, well worth suffering through the infamous Strasbourg bouchon
Last year, our 409 stopped exactly here, her old engine giving up the ghost for the many maladies accumulated in its 45 years of life. We felt that it was appropriate to make a picture to celebrate the fact that until then the engine didn't show any trouble....
We arrived easily in Montreuil in the early afternoon of Thursday 15 September. The National Road between Abbeville and Montreuil, once the scenery of one of James Bond's great car chases, welcomed us and our Bristol. We stayed at the 'Chateau de Montreuil', a charming Relais & Chateaux
The morning of Friday 16 we arrived at the entrance of the Channel Tunnel. As we were there one hour earlier than our booking, we were allowed (automatically) to board an earlier train
On the train, 35 minutes of relax
Our hosts had booked us a splendid hotel, the 'Amberley Castle' near Arundel. This yard was more or less the private parking of the three suites
Anna, as every lady, was fascinated by the Revival's accent on 'period' dress. As you can see, she fit into the part beautifully
A magnificent car park! The front row was mainly Rolls-Royce Silver Ghosts and a Vincent looked perfect in the foreground
Everything, in Goodwood, speaks volumes about the attention to detail that Lord March puts in the organization of his meetings. Please take a look at the Rolex clocks over the main pedestrian tunnel....
I found some extremely beautiful 6-cylinder Bristols, unfortunately there were no owners to chat with. If there were 8-cylinder Bristols, I wasn't lucky enough to see any of them
The original brochure of the 409 (top) included a heavily retouched picture of a silver over blue car, probably chassis #7304 or #7306, in front of a Middle Age castle. I tried to create a similar image in front of Amberley Castle (above)
The inside of Amberley Castle is as imposing as its outside
The Revival Car Show Parking alone was worth the price of the admission ticket....
Saturday morning, quite chilly and some light showers as well. We are both happy to be there and it shows
A wonderful part of the Revival was this display; a recreation of a 1940 Battle of Britain scene with a vintage Aston Martin, surely belonging to the young RAF officer flying one of the Spitfires lined up behind it. The tent is a sort of field Operations Room, I guess. Wonderful!
The flavor of the Goodwood Revival is well summed up in this picture mixing classic sports cars and the first Spitfire prototype, mechanics in white overalls and the Schneider Trophy Supermarine in the background. We had the pleasure of meeting Nicholas Challacombe and his wife under the wings of the mighty 'Memphis Belle' Flying Fortress; we were so busy chatting that we forgot to take some pics of us together, though. Shame!
I couldn't resist the temptation of having a picture taken under the Bristol engine of this Swordfish, thinking how brave were the guys flying it and facing the Flak of a monster like the KM Bismarck to launch that single torpedo
Classic Police cars as well....
A kind man took a pic of us in front of our Bristol
The difference in size between our 409 and this Lotus is amazing....
Porsche did a splendid job, as expected, setting up its vintage garage
A much admired Rolls-Royce
A Lancaster made a brief appereance Saturday afternoon, escorted by 2 of the 10+Spitfires lined up at Goodwood. This is a bad picture but I like it all the same
Anna and Lord March exchange views about the defence of the Earth against a possible Alien invasion (left); the Saturday evening ball offered by Lord March was attended by an estimated 1500-1700 people in black tie or 'space-age' dress and it was quite nice (right)
A magnificent party
Sunday morning the weather was quite damp
Sunday morning and a glorious sunshine: Amberley Castle it the perfect setting for this kind of picture
Anna and I had booked a round of golf at the Goodwood Golf Club (Downs Course) Sunday afternoon. We had the good luck of sunshine and several Spitfires flying overhead for the first 10 holes, and the course is fine: please note the chequered flag on the green! But when we teed off at the 11th hole the sky had suddenly turned black and the following HUGE downpoour forced us to seek for cover at The Kennels, Goodwood Clubs' clubhouse...
....so we settled down for a long shower, dressing for the afternoon and enjoying some excellent scones (left); the right picture shows how nice the weather was 2 hours after that sudden downpour, but by then the course was too wet to play.....
...therefore we waited until 7 p.m. and then I ordered a nice strong Cocktail Martini, the most civilized way to spend one hour before dinner. The Kennels' Martini is very good; the elegant 'flat' stem glass (right) is stunning.
I shall add the Kennels' Martini to my personal list; the dinner was superb as well, and highly recommended to any GRRC member travelling nearby
We slept Sunday night at the Goodwood Hotel. A nice place, though not particularly charming or luxurious. We found ourselves amongst the many wonderful cars of 'The National Classic Tour', a huge classic-car meeting cum rallye, so the parking lot was interesting to say the least....
The daily check of water and oil, before starting the car in the morning. The oil was also checked at every filling, of course, but never needed to be topped up
Driving back from Goodwood we took the Channel at 10,50 a.m. Monday morning and, driving all day long, we managed to reach Nancy around 7,30 p.m. The capital city of the Dukes of Lorraine has a splendid main square (Place Stanislas) and we slept at the 'Grand Hotel de la Reine' overlooking that square, a gently decaying institution with a surprisingly good service and fair prices
A good first leg; Tuesday we pressed a bit harder, as the 409 was really going very well, and arrived in Bologna in the late afternoon of Tuesday, in very good shape (both us and the 409)
This unusual St Christophorus plaque with the Swiss flag and the Canton Ticino shield probably provided us some good luck. It reads:
"Be careful. It's better to arrive late in this world than too early in the other one"
SUMMARY
The Bologna-Milano-Como-Gotthard-Basel-Strasbourg-Montreuil- Arundel leg of our trip was 1,024 miles long. We drove 70 miles there between Amberley Castle, The Goodwood House, the Revival Parking and the Goodwood Hotel; the return leg, Goodwood-Folkestone- Nancy- Basel-Gotthard-Como-Bologna was 970 miles long. The result was a 2,064 miles trip (3,321 kms); the Bristol maintained an average speed of 70 mph on the long highway runs and adding up the fuel bills, she used 470 litres of 98 gasoline, so the consumption was 7 kms for one litre or around 20 mpg, better than I hoped. I checked the oil and water levels every morning and they never needed to be topped up. In short, the 409 passed the test with flying colors....
