1961 Ferguson-Climax P99 Had it arrived only a couple of years earlier, this car might have changed the entire history of Formula One. As it was, it entered only one race, a nonchampionship event at Oulton Park, and won convincingly with Stirling Moss at the wheel. Its secret? Unlike any grand prix car before, it not only had four-wheel drive but also a primitive antilock braking system. Sadly, the front-engined design was already obsolete by 1961, leaving its potential unrealised and its place in grand prix history as a tantalising “what might have been”

Star fact Sir Stirling still reckons this is the best racing car he has ever driven

1949 So-Cal Special Only a group of people who spent their time making cars to charge across a salt desert would have spotted that the auxiliary long-distance fuel tanks of military aircraft were the perfect aerodynamic shape for record breaking. The So-Cal Special is arguably the most famous of the fuel-tank cars and averaged 195.77mph at Bonneville in 1951

Star fact The So-Cal Special was designed to break records in a number of different engine-size classes, so once it had one record under its belt, the mechanics would take it back to where they were staying, install another engine, go back out on the salt and break another record

1933 Bentley Barnato Hassan Special One of the most fabled of all Brooklands racers, this car was built using a Bentley chassis and 8 litre engine by Woolf Barnato, a diamond millionaire, three-time Le Mans winner and former owner of Bentley. It sprang to fame driven by Oliver Bertram, who lapped the Brooklands outer circuit at 142.6mph

Star fact Chief engineer was Wally Hassan, a former Bentley mechanic who in later life helped design the V12 engine used by Jaguar throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He died in 1996 aged 101

2006 Ferrari F1 Last year’s F1 car will not be remembered as one of Ferrari’s most successful – it came second in both the drivers’ and manufacturers’ championships – but its place in history as the last racing car to be driven in anger by Michael Schumacher seems assured. Even if Schumacher is not driving at Goodwood, the sight and sound of any state of the art F1 car is not to be missed

Star fact The Ferrari is fitted with a 2.4 litre V8 engine capable of revving safely to more than 20,000rpm

1952 Jaguar XK120 Montlhéry Montlhéry is the name of a banked racetrack outside Paris and in a bid to prove both the speed and reliability of the Jaguar XK120 sports car a team of drivers including Stirling Moss drove this standard road car flat out, not merely for a few hours but an entire week. In the end it covered 16,860 miles and averaged a fraction over 100mph, inclusive of all stops

Star fact Drivers grew so bored they devised ways of keeping the man at the wheel alert. One time Moss came off the banking to discover two of his teammates sitting in the middle of the track playing cards

1974 Chevrolet Camaro IROC The International Race of Champions pitted the best drivers in the world against one another, all driving identical cars such as this brutish Chevrolet Camaro. You drew cars by lots and if you won one race you started the next in last place. Fitted with a 500bhp V8 motor, the Camaro was more powerful than the Formula One cars of the era and required a firm hand to master

Star fact Among many other drivers, the car at Goodwood was raced by Graham Hill, Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi and Bobby Unser

1970 Chaparral 2J Chaparral’s Jim Hall was arguably the most inventive racing car designer of his era and the 2J was his most radical machine. His idea was to attach two large fans that sucked all the air out from under the car, giving it massive grip at all speeds. The theory was so good that a Brabham-made Formula One “sucker car” won the only race it ever entered. Sadly the 2J was not reliable, so its considerable potential went unrealised

Star fact The two fans were not powered by its 700bhp Chevrolet V8 motor but a rather less vaunted 45bhp engine from a snowmobile

Tyrrell-Ford P34 A brilliant concept that never quite enjoyed the success it deserved. Fitting four small front wheels increased the amount of rubber on the tarmac while four small brake discs offered a greater surface area to help slow the car down. Unfortunately the extra wheels also made the car more complex and caused handling difficulties as the wheelbase effectively changed when one or other front set of tyres locked under braking. It won only once, in Sweden in 1976, with Jody Scheckter driving.

Star fact The P34 was rendered obsolete in 1977 by Goodyear’s refusal to develop its bespoke front tyres in the same way as the rear tyres that it supplied not only to Tyrrell but to most other teams on the grid

1970 Porsche 917K Perhaps the most enigmatic racing car of all time, the 917 dominated sports car racing in the early 1970s, immortalising drivers such as Jo Siffert and Pedro Rodriguez. And no wonder: at tracks like Le Mans they would exceed 240mph – unheard of in those days – and lap fast tracks more quickly even than the F1 cars of their era. This example comes in Gulf livery, made famous by the Steve McQueen movie Le Mans

Star fact The 917s were so fast they were banned from sports car racing at the end of 1971. So they went to North America and spent another two years utterly dominating the Can-Am championship there

1971 BRM P160 When Peter Gethin won the Italian Grand Prix in 1971 driving this BRM, not only was it the fastest grand prix of all time – he averaged in excess of 150mph – but it was a record that was to stand for more than 30 years. It also was, and remains, the closest Formula One race in history: Mike Hailwood crossed the line less than a fifth of a second behind Gethin, but came only fourth

Star fact The same car was rebodied for the 1972 season and won a rain-soaked Monaco Grand Prix at an average of less than 64mph, making it one of the slowest F1 races of all time

BONNEVILLE ICONS IN SUSSEX
Goodwood's cricket pitch is to be swathed in white to emulate the salt flats at Bonneville USA (“the fastest place on earth”). On display will be a dozen of the most significant landspeed competition cars that redefined the technical possibilities of their age. Four to look out for...

1970 Blue Flame A beautiful 42ft long car that smashed the land speed record in 1970. American driver Gary Gabelich averaged 630mph over two runs, so fast the record stood for 11 years. What makes Blue Flame unique among official record-breakers was being rocket powered

Challenger 1 Drag racer Mickey Thompson drove Challenger 1 to success in 1960 at Bonneville, becoming the first American to break the 400mph barrier. Bullet-shaped Challenger 1 was powered by four Pontiac V8 engines, which had each been tuned to produce 700bhp

MG EX181 The Roaring Raindrop became the fastest ever 1500cc class car when Stirling Moss achieved 245mph in 1957. Driver Phil Hill later improved the speed to 254mph with a slightly larger engine. The car had been tuned to produce an incredible 280bhp

Spirit of 76 Speed king Al Teague will be at Goodwood for the first time with his record-breaking vehicle. Despite the name, Spirit of 76 actually became the fastest piston-powered car in 1991, reaching 409mph and breaking a 26-year-old record. Teague built the car himself

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