Why The Goodwood Revival is a motoring event every petrolhead should visit

THIS week I’ve managed to achieve something entirely new. I’ve been complimented by some Belgians, and it’s all thanks to a borrowed hat and a jacket bought in a charity shop in Southport.

Our continental chums had pulled up at something called the Goodwood Revival in an assortment of old Austin-Healey and Porsche sports cars, dressed like extras from Goodnight Sweetheart. They took a fleeting glimpse at the riot of tweed, smiled knowingly, and one of them, who’d just emerged from the cabin of a Jaguar XK120, said it all. “Fantastic outfit”!

The Belgians, the Dutch and the Swiss – and, to be fair, most of the English too if the nearby traffic jams were anything to go by – had all made a beeline for this corner of the deepest Sussex countryside. I reckon quite a few petrolheads in Sefton and West Lancashire did too, to check out what has to be the highlight of my motoring year to date.

The Goodwood Revival is one of those things you have to do at least once, because it’s quite unlike any event I’ve ever been to. To badly paraphrase an office cliché, you don’t have to wear period costume to go, but it helps. The whole weekend is designed to wind the clock back to about 1966, to a time when people would tune into the wireless on their Ford Anglia to catch the latest Cliff Richard record.

It’s marvellously silly, of course, but when you’re battling through a crowd of hippies, Teddy Boys and RAF airmen fresh from the Battle of Britain in a bid to get a glimpse of an E-type Jaguar, you really wouldn’t be In The Mood if you’d turned up in a GAP t-shirt and a pair of Levis.

As my mission there was to help get a hot report on all the action into the latest edition of Classic Car Weekly, I went overboard with the 1950s Fleet Street look, and brought along a tweed jacket which I’d bought from a charity shop in Southport the previous weekend. Combined with an equally tweed hat I’d borrowed off a mate, I actually felt like I’d wandered through the gates and back in time fifty years.

In fact, the retro attire helped me grant me an audience with perhaps the best known car of the Sixties – the very same Aston Martin DB5 used by Daniel Craig in Skyfall! I know Goodwood is miles away and the idea of going to a car show in fancy dress might sound ridiculous, but it’s worth it for the spectacle of seeing no less than 27 Ford GT40s in a row while a Supermarine Spitfire thunders overhead. I cannot recommend donning the tweed and going to Goodwood highly enough.

As Harold Macmillan might have put it, you never had it so good.

Read this week's edition of Classic Car Weekly for a full report on all the highlights and racing action from the Goodwood Revival

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Bond's Aston Martin DB5 looks stunning in Skyfall

YOU always know from the amount of secret agent-themed ads on telly when there’s a new Bond blockbuster on the way.

Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave for the past year you’ll already know that 007’s latest adventure is called Skyfall, and will feature Daniel Craig in his third outing as the suave secret agent, once you’ve got through Adele crooning her way through the theme song. I also freely admit I’m very nearly as much of a Bond nut as I am a car nut – even though I’ll enjoy pretty much any movie which features explosions and car chases, I always reserve a particular fondness for the Bond films.

But what’s really whetting my appetite for the new one isn’t a sultry sidekick or a spectacular storyline. It’s those publicity shots of Bond’s DB5 on the spy’s trip to the Scottish Highlands.

The DB5 has always been a fabulously good looking thing but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the quintessential Bond car in a more breathtaking setting. There’s a moody, bleak beauty to the scenery while the car obviously gives the shot a very retro feel; the classic English GT eating up the miles through the stunning Scottish landscapes.

In fact, that’s pretty much what director Sam Mendes went for, and told national media earlier this year: “I felt it was a thematic thing. It's definitely about the old and the new. And there's something about the last part of the movie which deliberately, very consciously, could have taken place in 1962.”

The thing I love most of all about these pictures is that, in much the same way the Daniel Craig movies have tried to take Bond back to basics, devoid of CGI and gadgets, so these shots take the DB5 away from being a cheesy automotive cliché and remind car nuts what it really is and what it does best; it’s a classy, handcrafted GT car, designed to wind its way over mountain passes in speed and comfort.

Forget the race against the Ferrari F355 in Goldeneye – this is what a classic Aston is all about. Fingers crossed then, with Mr Mendes appearing to do the DB5 justice in these shots, that’ll he take good care of 007 himself in the new film.

Skyfall hits the cinemas later this month. I, for one, can’t wait.

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