What can be said about the Goodwood Festival of Speed?
Well, it’s unique, for a start. Where else can you find major car manufacturers gathering with this kind of enthusiasm? They erect colossal temporary edifices, corporate statements of identity, all designed to incite salivation in the glands of a fevered public. And why are they fevered? Well, it could be down to a combination of asphyxia and tinnitus thrown from an incredible variety of historic racing machinery being thrust viscously up the Goodwood Hillclimb, mere yards from these glorious temples of automotive worship.
As Hoons (a title which places us beyond the status of Car Enthusiast) this could be regarded as pretty much our Ground Zero. OK, it’s not Daytona or Monza, but it has grown to be equally important in its own right. This year 21 new cars are making their debut here. Firms are choosing Goodwood over Geneva or Detroit to showcase their new high-performance releases. They’re pumping serious money  into this thing, year on year. To me it has far more allure than just another motorshow.
And Hooniverse is here for the weekend. Well, I am, anyway. Jeff and Tim had pedicures booked or something, so you’ll have to make do with me. Anyway, let’s get started.

As ever, Goodwood this year seems to have attracted a very broad spread of visitors, and that tends to lead to the car parking being festooned with the kind of cars you don’t tend to park next to outside Walmart. Of course, I don’t want to, like, act impressed or anything, you know, I’ll play it cool. Just like being stuck in a lift with a celebrity.

Yes, it’s an F40. A blue one, no less, with an extremely apt registration plate. There are probably more F40’s knocking about, parked between Mercs and SEATs, but this is just the one that I happened to walk past. I didn’t stop and take loads of photos, ‘cos that wouldn’t have been cool.

Yeah, that’s a 599GTO parked next to a Citroen and a Peugeot based RV. It’s just a car. You know, people have to get here somehow. I actually love the idea of cars like these being parked and left to bask in the sunlight while their owners wander off and enjoy a day of motorsport-flavoured entertainment. It’s a bit like going to watch the Red Bull Air-races and finding that everybody has turned up in F16s.
But, you’ve seen one Ferrari, you’ve seen them all, right? Yeah, maybe. Rich folk buy cool toys. That’s fine.

I’ll wager the gent who owns this isn’t short of a bob or two, either. But an odious part of my personality leaps to the conclusion that I’d rather have a drink with the guy who keeps this on the road than the chap with the GTO.
So, I’ve already enjoyed myself here today and I haven’t yet left the car park.
Goodwood. There’s nothing else quite like it anywhere else in the world.
(All images copyright Hooniverse / Chris Haining 2015. All subsequent images will be much better. Follow me on Twitter @RoadworkUK for Moar Stuff!)