GOODWOOD REVIVAL

The Goodwood Revival is three days of racing each September at Goodwood Circuit, outside Chichester in West Sussex, for the kinds of car and motorcycle that raced there in the circuit’s first life, from 1948 to 1966: fifteen races in 2026, from a Friday evening race for closed GT cars to the Royal Automobile Club TT Celebration on the Sunday, on a track of 2.367 miles that runs round an airfield. The circuit is dressed as it was, and so, by choice, is much of the crowd.

No modern vehicle is allowed inside the perimeter all weekend, except the fire and rescue vehicles.

Westhampnett

The circuit began as the perimeter track of RAF Westhampnett, a relief airfield for Tangmere in the war. The first race meeting was held on 18 September 1948, organised by the Junior Car Club with the sanction of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, and Stirling Moss won the race for 500cc cars.

Farina won the Goodwood Trophy of 1951 at over ninety-five miles an hour, and in 1952 a chicane was put in; brick walls followed in 1953. The circuit has kept that shape since. It held the Glover Trophy for Formula One cars outside the championship, the Goodwood Nine Hours in 1952, 1953 and 1955, and the RAC Tourist Trophy from 1958 to 1964. Mike Hawthorn and Graham Hill had their first races in single-seaters there, and Moss’s international career ended in an accident at St Mary’s in 1962. Donald Campbell brought Bluebird to show in the summers of 1960 and 1962.

The last race meeting was in 1966, and there was none for more than thirty years.

The first Revival was held in 1998, fifty years after the 9th Duke had opened the track. Not everyone wanted it, and a numerous Goodwood Supporters Association helped win approval. It has been held every year since but 2020; that of 2026 was the twenty-eighth. Moss came back to drive, and Jack Brabham, John Surtees, Phil Hill, Damon Hill and Barry Sheene, and in 2009 Rowan Atkinson appeared as Mr Bean.

The Three Days

It runs from Friday to Sunday. The races are for the cars of particular years: the Goodwood Trophy for Grand Prix cars and voiturettes of 1930 to 1951, the Brooklands Trophy for sports cars from before 1939, the St Mary’s Trophy for saloons of 1960 to 1966 in two parts, the Glover Trophy for Grand Prix cars of 1961 to 1965, and the Barry Sheene Memorial Trophy for 500cc motorcycles to 1960, two riders to a machine. The Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy, an hour for two drivers in closed GT cars from before 1963, is run on the Friday evening; the RAC TT Celebration, an hour for closed GT cars of 1960 to 1964, two drivers each, on the Sunday. The Settrington Cup, named for the courtesy title Lord Settrington, is raced by children in Austin J40 pedal cars.

The setting is built for it: some thirty areas of the circuit dressed with period signs, and more than ten thousand costumes for eight hundred staff and performers, under Peter Russell, who has dressed the Revival since the first. There are costume shops, and Betty’s Salon does hair and make-up. Admission includes Over the Road and the evening festivities.

In 2026, from 18 to 20 September, the theme was La Dolce Vita, the golden era of Italy. Maserati marked a century of racing, and a Maserati 250S won the Lavant Cup; Vespa marked eighty years with more than three hundred scooters made before 1967 in the parade that opens the track; and there were the centenary of Sir Jack Brabham and fifty years since Barry Sheene’s first world title. The TT went to Lukas Halusa and André Lotterer in a low-drag Jaguar E-type Lightweight, by one second after a three-second penalty, and the St Mary’s Trophy to Romain Dumas and Fred Shepherd in a Ford Galaxie 500.

What to Know

It runs from a Friday to a Sunday in mid-September: in 2027, from 17 to 19 September. Tickets are offered first to GRRC Members and Fellows and to those who came in 2026.

Admission covers Over the Road, the evening festivities and parking; a grandstand seat is not included. Children under twelve go free.

Period dress, of 1948 to 1966, is encouraged, not required, and nobody enforces it at the gate. The Paddock asks for a jacket and tie, or a dress or suit for ladies, in or out of period. A lounge suit, cut to the period: not a modern-cut suit, and no trainers, smartwatch or wraparound sunglasses. Officers’ uniforms of the war years are welcome.

Trains run direct from London Victoria to Chichester in about an hour and thirty-five minutes, and a shuttle bus goes from the station to the circuit. Parking is free, on grass, from seven in the morning, and none overnight. The roads are slow; one regular would at least double journey times, if not triple them. The Goodwood Hotel, on the 11,000-acre estate, has ninety-one rooms; there is also camping at the circuit, from the Wednesday to the Monday.

The mistake is modern clothes: “against a field of tweed and tea dresses they feel like a tracksuit at a wedding”.

The Court

The Goodwood Revival is not the Court’s own. Admission with the Paddock, and seats in a grandstand, are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay on the estate, and the table afterward. In 2027 the Ryder Cup is played at Adare Manor the same weekend.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.