...but it's still not a bad place for showing off a COPO. Meet the ancestral home of Charles, Lord of March and Kinrara -- been in his family longer than the US has been a country. Lord March, is a bonafide car nut who hosts the world's preeminent vintage racing festivals on these grounds. In July he runs a three day hillclimb up a mile of his driveway with everything from steam powered cars of the 1890s through the six of the current F1 teams and everything possible in between -- NASCAR, rallying, modern Pro Stock drag racing cars, Grand Sport Corvettes and Shelby Daytona Coupes, Bob Riggle's Hemi Under Glass wheelstander, you name it. There is also a vintage road racing event in September the week after the Reunion that sees people put multi-million dollar cars at serious risk on the track (no staged Pebble Beach finishes here). One guy last year backed his $3 million dollar Ferrari 250LM into a sandbank something fierce. In addition, he got Rolls Royce to put their new factory on his land.
Goodwood -- Motorsport
Lord March and his competition director also have a penchant for American cars, which is why they asked me to bring the COPO down for people to see at the Goodwood Road Racing Club Open House -- he owned and road raced an early sixties Galaxie for a while and regularly jumps behind the wheel of big block powered Can-Am cars for the hillclimb.
You'll all be pleased to know that the almost entirely English crowd was super interested in the COPO despite their traditional love of lightweight high revving Lotus or Jags or imperial, super luxe Bentleys and the like. Most of all they seemed fascinated by how huge the engine was and how small the tires were -- they seemed to get it!! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/burnout.gif[/img] I spent most of the day answering questions about drag racing, what COPO's were, the history of the original cars, the fact that GM warrantied them even though they were bought to race, fuel consumption, etc. I may not have developed a new set of enthusiasts but at least there are some more knowledgeable people on this side of the Atlantic. A car nut is a car nut is a car nut. Oh yeah, I gave everyone a little horsepower demo on the way out the driveway, too...
By the way, you'll either be pleased or mortified (sorry Mr. Billigen) that I drove the car seventy miles each way on a 95+ degree day on bias plies using a combination of city streets, highways and two lane country roads without a single problem. Car was fine, but I have to admit I was a bit stressed by the time I got home.
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