Goodwood goes racing back through the ages

[TheStig]

A three-day festival of classic British motor racing started yesterday, reliving the glory days of the Goodwood racing circuit.

The Goodwood Revival, which is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the race track, is displaying various modes of transport as used in 1948, ranging from racing cars to commercial vehicles, steam rollers, a milk float, and even a light aircraft.

At a sale held yesterday, one of the earliest number plates ever issued fetched a world record price of £397,500 at auction. The registration mark “S1” was the first registration to be issued in Edinburgh. The registration plate had been estimated to be sold for £200,000 to £250,000.

The sale, at Bonhams’ Goodwood Revival sale at Chichester, West Sussex, brought the number on to the market for the first time since it was created in 1903.

Josephine Olley, for the auctioneer, said: “There was a bidding battle between several people on the telephone and a bidder in the room. The bidder who was present eventually secured the lot to a round of applause.”

The registration number originally belonged to Sir John H. A. MacDonald, one of the first car owners in Scotland and a founding member of the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland, which later became the RAC.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article4791886.ece

TheStig