A British motor show will be held on the eve of this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed.
The event will run on Thursday, 1 July, and be billed as 'The Moving Motor Show' as visitors will be allowed to test drive cars on a 3.5-mile route around Goodwood estate, and drive cars up the hillclimb course, according to autocar.co.uk sources.
Goodwood Festival of Speed 2009 pictures
The show will also feature car launches, including the new Alfa Romeo Giulietta. Alfa Romeo is the the featured marque for the Festival this year, as the Italian brand celebrates its 100th anniversary.
In addition, visitors will be given early access to some of the Festival's attractions, and get a behind-the-scenes look at its organisation.
However, it hasn't been decided yet whether tickets will be sold to the event, or if will be left to manufacturers attending the show to invite people, allowing them to focus on giving test drives to potential car buyers.
Sources say the motor show is the idea of Goodwood estate's owner, Charles March, who is hoping to attract more manufacturers to have displays by widening the scope of the event beyond its traditional motorsport base.
If the inaugural event is a success, it is likely to be expanded in future. It could potentially deal a killer blow to the British motor show, which was cancelled this year due to a lack of manufacturer interest.
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Re: Goodwood's 'British motor show'
In many respects the 'Motor Show' aspect is already contained within the current FoS format. I have enjoyed the mini 'Earls Court' for the last two years. Only the 'test drive' part would be different. It will be interesting to see how much more or less crowded the event would become. As a proper Motor Show Geneva is still the real deal though. At eight pounds to get in and fifty quid to fly there it's a cheaper day out than almost anything in the UK.
Re: Goodwood's 'British motor show'
This might be quite a good idea. It's still depressing that there's no British Motorshow to go to this year, but the idea of a show before Goodwood seems good, I've always fancied going anyway. Hopefully the main Motorshow will be resurrected at some point. I always thought the likes of Earls Court and the NEC were the most motorshow-y places, always thought ExCel seemed a bit small, even though it's a very very nice venue. It'd be nice to see something anyway. In the meantime, I'll have to make do with going to the Paris show for the big motorshow experience.
Re: Goodwood's 'British motor show'
Good money spinner for Lord March. At least £40-a-throw for tickets I reckon...probably more like £60. This is somewhere between ExCel and Salon Privé!