12 unmissable new cars from the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed

Although England’s success rate in “summer of sport” events this year isn’t exactly unblemished, two major highlights have been Lewis Hamilton’s win at the British GP and the annual vehicular extravagnaza that is the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Despite typically mixed British weather across the four days, and four professional drivers suffering the indignity of binning their cars into straw bales (including an ultra-rare Lotus Evija X hypercar just metres from the start-line), the huge crowds were once again entertained by the automotive pageant held at Goodwood House, home of the event’s founder the Duke of Richmond and Gordon.

Such a major draw on the calendar has the Festival of Speed become that the major car manufacturers often choose to launch some of their most important new models there, and 2024 was no exception.

Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale

Goodwood was the location for the first UK outing of the exquisite £2.8m Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale. The new car is a modern interpretation of the original, built between 1967 and 1969, and as befits its model number just 33 examples of the Stradale will be made, split between a V6 petrol and a pure-electric version – the former with around 620bhp and the latter with in excess of 750bhp.

Despite the price tag, all of them have already been sold and Alfa says no two 33s will be of the exact same specification, with slightly more V6s ordered than electric 33 Stradales. Customers include F1 ace Valtteri Bottas, who helped to develop the car when he drove for the Alfa Romeo F1 team in the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

Alpine A290

Renault has revived its 5 supermini as a delightful little electric car for 2024 and beyond, so it makes sense that the company’s performance sibling Alpine would get hold of it and give the thing its own spin. The result is one of the most-anticipated electric cars of recent years, the Alpine A290, which saw its global public debut down at the Festival of Speed.

Looking like a modern-day Renault 5 Maxi for the road, the A290 is relatively light for an EV at 1,479kg, which means it can make the most of its power, which is either 178- or 215bhp (both are more than anything the Renault 5 EV has). It can run 0-62mph in 6.4 seconds in its more powerful format.

A 52kWh battery only allows for an official range of 234 miles (so probably less than 200 in the real world) but when it looks as good as this, who cares?

Aston Martin Valiant

The mighty Valiant had its dynamic debut at Goodwood Festival of Speed in the hands of no less a luminary than two-times F1 world champion Fernando Alonso. Fitting, because he was the man who told Aston Martin he wanted a more focused, track-ready example of the short-lived Valour supercar — so Aston duly delivered.

So good was Alonso’s commission that the company has committed to making 38 examples of the Valiant, which is powered by a monstrous 734bhp, 5.2-litre V12 engine that sends drive to the rear wheels via a six-speed manual gearbox. The Valiant is also 100kg lighter than a Valour and has better aerodynamics.

Oh, and the paintjob on the car at Goodwood? It was inspired by the “Muncher”, a heavily modified Aston Martin DBS that competed at Le Mans in 1977 and could hit 188mph along the Mulsanne straight.

Ford Capri

Well, this turned out to be contentious in the extreme. In the build-up to Goodwood, Ford teased us with a “return of an icon” advertising campaign and then revealed that the hallowed Capri badge, not seen since 1986 in the UK, was coming back. Only, instead of appearing on a lithe new coupé, it has instead been apportioned to an electric SUV which is based on the Ford Explorer EV and shares most of its underpinnings with the Volkswagen ID.5.

It’s the Capri’s styling that bothered social media users in the main, though, with many commenting that it bears more than a passing resemblance to the Polestar 2.

Anyway, with up to 335bhp and a potential range of 390 miles, courtesy of a battery pack of up to 79kWh, the new Ford Capri has eye-catching potential. Whether you call that an icon or not is up to you…

Ford Mustang GTD

Slightly less contentious — and a whole lot more appealing from Ford — was the Mustang GTD. This is essentially one of the company’s GT3 race cars made fit for public consumption, although its spec is so demented that Ford is still seeking type approval to get it to be road-legal in certain markets; if it can’t achieve that, the GTD will be sold as a track-only special.

Underneath the wild bodywork and swan-neck rear wing, this thing is about as closely related to the existing road-going Mustang as the new Ford Capri is to the old Ford Capri. It has a completely different rear transaxle (a combination of the gearbox and differential, which itself distributes power to the wheels) and front-end subframe, along with clever inboard suspension.

And then there’s the small matter of 789bhp from a 5.2-litre supercharged V8 engine up front. The GTD’s interior even uses bits of recycled titanium from the cockpits of F22 Raptor fighter jets, and it spent its debut at Goodwood making a heck of a lot of glorious noise and generating even more tyre smoke with a couple of lurid burnouts. Magnificent.

Genesis GV60 Magma

If you’re of a certain age, you’ll probably read the word “Magma” and hear it enunciated by none other than Austin Powers’ nemesis Dr. Evil, but if you can sidestep that childishness (we’re struggling to, if we’re honest), then know that Magma is going to be Korean company Genesis’ performance epithet.

It was the excellent GV60 EV that mainly caught our eye during its dynamic debut at the Festival of Speed, with Genesis claiming its (liquid hot) Magma cars will not just be about pure speed, but more about handling prowess and driver involvement.

The GV60 Magma is slated for production in 2025 though details about it are thin on the ground for now. The guess is it will use one of the powertrains from either the Kia EV6 GT (577bhp) or the mesmerising Hyundai Ioniq 5 N (641bhp), as both these high-output EVs are related to Genesis.

Honda Prelude

Honda took its hybrid sports car to Goodwood as a “concept”, officially, but the belief is this thing is production-ready and will be making it to Europe some time in 2025.

It will probably only have around 200bhp, if rumours are to be believed, so it won’t be a road rocket, but if Honda can make this Prelude handle like some of its finest works — including the scintillating current Civic Type R hot hatchback — then the revised name would be a fine affordable alternative to the Toyota GR86.

Land Rover Defender Octa

The monstrous Octa was given its dynamic debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, allowing show-goers to hear its brutal 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8, which develops 626bhp, for the first time.

Named after the octagonal internal structure of a diamond, because the vehicle is “incredibly tough and highly desirable” like the jewel, the Octa is the most powerful Land Rover Defender yet to make production.

It’s said to be just as fast off-road as it is on it, thanks to clever hydraulically adjustable suspension, and and a 4.0sec 0-62mph time is definitely punchy. Yet it can still wade through up to 1,000mm of water, which means it is still a highly capable 4×4 as well as formidably quick.

Maserati MC20 special editions

Maserati’s superb mid-engined supercar, the MC20, has revived interest in the Trident manufacturer and so the Italian company took two special-edition versions of the vehicle to Goodwood to be unveiled live for the first time.

Called the MC20 Icona and the MC20 Leggenda, they serve to mark 20 years since Maserati unleashed the incredible MC12 hypercar on the world, in both its road-going and racing formats.

To that end, the Icona looks much like the ultra-limited examples of the MC12 road car, with Bianco Audace Matte paint in the main complemented by a lower level of Blu Stradale racing banding; the cabin inside has blue highlights, too. The Leggenda, meanwhile, has the black and mint-coloured combination that was worn by the Vitaphone Racing MC12 GT1s, which were so successful in GT motorsport in the mid-2000s onwards.

Just 20 examples of each will be available, with no word on price nor power output increases, although with 621bhp the MC20 is hardly lacking in this department as it is.

MG Cyber GTS Concept

MG — the title sponsor of FoS this year — brought along an intriguing 2+2 coupé to the show called the Cyber GTS Concept. And it’s fair to say it’s a cracking looking thing.

Now, the company said this was an homage to a 1960s factory racer from the once-British, now Chinese-owned marque, called the MGC GTS Sebring, but what it really amounts to is a sneak preview of a hard-topped sibling for the MG Cyberster electric convertible.

So while MG wouldn’t allow anyone to see the interior of the Cyber GTS Concept at Goodwood, nor did it say anything about drivetrain specs, you can take it as read that it will have pretty much the same options as the Cyberster. That means either a single 250kW 335bhp rear-mounted motor paired with a 64kWh-capacity battery pack, or a more potent 375kW dual-motor set-up for all-wheel drive, a peak power output of 503bhp and a potential range of around 300 miles (officially).

If MG puts this electric Alpine A110 rival into production sooner rather than later, it could be a hit.

Chinese car makers

MG is a British brand owned by SAIC Motor, a car giant owned by the Chinese state. Buyers ought to be aware that Chinese car makers, however independent they claim to be, have been criticised for receiving an unfair advantage through WTO rule-breaking state support, from a regime that Amnesty International reports carries out torture, genocide and routine suppression of dissent.

Morgan Plus Four

Morgan showed off the latest version of its long-serving Plus Four at Goodwood. This two-seat roadster has been around since 1950 and it’s still made via traditional craftsmanship at the company’s factory over in Malvern, Worcestershire.

The new one has had its exterior appearance tidied up, with neater wings and improved lights front and rear, while inside is a powerful Sennheiser sound system and a more advanced, colourful version of the digital display screen in front of the driver.

Power comes from a 2-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine that produces 255bhp, which can be paired to either a six-speed manual or eight-speed BMW automatic transmission. The latter gets more torque (twisting force) than the former, so it can run 0-62mph in 4.8 seconds.

It’s therefore a thoroughly modern performance from a car in many respects, but its appearance and cab-rearward design is still firmly rooted in the past, in the best possible way.

Porsche 911

A Porsche 911 usually needs no introduction, so familiar a thing is it nowadays, but the current generation — the eighth, known in Porsche fan-speak as the “992” after its development code — has just gone through its midlife facelift (making it the 992.2).

As part of this, and with ardent admirers of this German marque notoriously loathe to change (witness the furore when the 911 went from air-cooled to water-cooled engines in 1996), the big talking point here was that the car chosen to be ragged up the hillclimb by former F1 pilot and general driving legend Mark Webber was the GTS — complete with its new hybrid system.

However, Porsche says this is a set-up focused on improving performance rather than saving fuel (although it does that, too), and it seemed like the company was good for its word as Webber positively hustled the 911 GTS up the Goodwood hill in remarkably short order indeed.

If you found our guide to the best 12 cars to launch in Goodwood interesting, you may want to read about the spectacular new Red Bull RB17 hypercar
Here’s our guide to the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed
Have you heard how the 2024 Goodwood Revival is going ‘green’?

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