The 2017 Goodwood Festival of Speed in southeast England just spent three days showing off successful racing cars and motorcycles that became milestones in motor-racing history. As we all know, BMW has no shortage of racing cars that were extremely successful.
BMW Group Classic provided a number of winning race cars and bikes to the 2017 Festival of Speed that takes place each year on the estate of Lord March. Perhaps the highlight of the gathering is the hillclimb, where vintage racing machines once again demonstrate the engineering and design that made them memorable—and winners. These demonstration drives trace their heritage back to 1936, when Lord March's grandfather hosted a private hillclimb on the Goodwood House grounds.
The vehicles that BMW Group Classic brought to Goodwood this year include some of the most significant victors in the company's motorsports history. For example, running the hill this year was the BMW 328 Mille Miglia Touring Coupe that in 1940 won the 1,000-mile Italian race outright, decisively, and in record time. With its streamlined body, lighter weight, and reliable six-cylinder engine, this racer foreshadowed what would make BMWs sport cars great right up to the present day.
For many motorsports fans, Formula 1 is the epitome of the sport. In 1983, BMW sat alone at the top of the mountain when Nelson Piquet drove the Brabham BMW BT52 to the World Championship. BMW bacame the first manufacturer to win the Formula 1 driver's championship with a car powered by a turbocharged engine. This machine fit right in with the 2017 Goodwood theme: Motorsports Game Changers. The BT52 was driven up the hill by former Formula 1 driver and member of the 1983 Brabham BMW team, Ricardo Patrese.
The E30 BMW M3 is perhaps the most beloved of all BMW race winners, possibly because it was the most successful touring car racer of all time. It's popularity might also be attributed at least in part to the fact that it was homologated as a street car and thousands of them have been owned and driven by BMW enthusiasts for thirty years.
At Goodwood 2017, the very familiar Group A BMW M3 DTM car did the hillclimb with Italian racing legend and touring car champion Roberto Ravaglia in the cockpit. Ravaglia won the first Touring Car World Championship in 1987 driving the BMW M3 and followed up in 1989 with the German Touring Car Championship.
BMW had won classes at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but never took the overall victory—until 1999 when the BMW V12 LMR beat the whole field in the great race with Pierluigi Martini, Joachim Winkelhock, and Yannick Dalmas, taking turns at the wheel. This weekend, the V12 LMR's brief dash up the hill was enormously shorter than the 3,987 miles the #15 BMW LMW drove at Le Mans in 1999, but it sure looked good—and cleaner—at Goodwood.
BMW race cars were not the only vehicles that BMW Group Classic brought to Goodwood this year. Mini, which won four back-to-back victories in the Dakar Rally from 2012 to 2015, presented the Mini ALL4 Racing.
Two-wheeled vehicles brought BMW early motorsports success and BMW Group Classic brought a 1929 supercharged BMW WR 500 motorcycle. In 1939, Georg Meier took the Senior TT at the Isle of Mann Tourist Trophy on a flat-twin supercharged Boxer BMW. This and many other wins probably caused motorcycle race organizers to outlaw superchargers in the post-war period.
BMWs are still winning touring car races and other road racing series and motorcycle championships. Another Le Mans win may not be far off as BMW plans a return there. But whatever success the company experiences in the future, the foundation was laid by classic BMW racing machines from the past; some of the best of which impressed the crowds once again at Goodwood 2017.—Scott Blazey
[Photos courtesy of BMW AG.]
