Goodwood Festival of Speed: A Designer's Perspective

Inevitably, there have been lots of posts going up from Goodwood 2022, covering the racing highlights as well as interesting new vehicle concepts and future mobility trends.?

One of our design team, Eimear, was one of the lucky people in attendance so we caught up with her recently to get a designers take on the Festival of Speed.?

Read on to hear what she said…?

What does the future hold for motor racing in this new era of electric vehicles?

EVs as a whole are extraordinarily quick, and I’ve no doubt that the only powertrain that’s going to continue to set records at events like the FoS Hillclimb is electric.

The McMurtry was just insane, it was in a completely different league to any of the other cars. The one thing at the moment that’s preventing EVs from dominating all forms of motorsport is range – to get any range comparable to an ICE the batteries have to get bigger, which adds to the weight and then slows them down.

It’ll be game over for ICE in the forefront of motor-racing once the EVs can crack endurance racing. And that’ll be very sad indeed, because there’s absolutely no doubt that one of the biggest factors to feeling immersed in racing as a spectator is the noise.

It’s one of few things you really need to be at a race to appreciate. I don’t think ICE cars will stop racing - look at events like Goodwood Revival and Silverstone Classic, they’re still racing some of the oldest cars in history.

Eventually ICE races will become specialised events for diehard petrolheads, but this is still quite a way off for the time being.

While they undoubtedly serve different audiences, are there any common design themes between the humble Renault 5 EV prototype and hypercars like the futuristic Rimac Nevera?

Although the two brands have distinctly different design languages, both cars have a nod to history – the Renault 5 Prototype inspired by the original Renault 5, and the cravat detail on the flank of the Nevera which references the traditional necktie of the company’s origin.

Another common design theme across many EVs is the visual front grille delete. EVs don’t have the same cooling requirements as ICEs so they don’t need as much open area at the front of the vehicle, and many brands are embracing that to do something different with the face of their vehicles. Traditionally the grille was something that carried a lot of brand identity (eg BMW’s kidney grille). Now that that is becoming less functionally important, designers are looking at other features like DRL signatures to set their brand apart.

BMW are choosing to lean into their kidney grille though by making it bigger and bigger, which was most evident on the XM concept they brought with them to FoS. They’re one of the few brands still trying to push that as their primary identifying factor for brand recognition and it’s proved to be very polarising.

Are you naturally looking for design inspiration at events like Goodwood?

I think design inspiration can and should come from a variety of sources, but it’s important to keep in the loop with what’s happening in the automotive world. FoS is fast becoming the go-to event for brands to launch their new vehicles at and showcase their latest concept cars. Quite often you get a slightly different impression of a design in person vs seeing images online, so it’ll always be important as a designer to go to events like this.

Additionally with exhibitions like the Future Lab it’s good to see what’s happening in other mobility or mobility-related industries. There’s been a lot of development in eVTOLs for example, which offers a completely different package from the traditional automobile, leading to a variety of new design solutions.

Are there any vehicles or design features that particularly stood out to you during the event?

One vehicle I was particularly excited to see was the Rivian R1T. I’ve been a fan of its clean but detailed design and clever packaging since it first came out. This was its first appearance in the UK (a rather last-minute ordeal apparently) and it was a nice surprise to find it while wandering around the EV area.

Some other cars that stood out were the Lucid Air, Renault 5 Prototype and Polestar O2 – again very nice clean designs but had good attention to detail. For me the best designs don’t just look good from a distance, they have to have an attention to detail that you can only appreciate by getting up close and personal with them.??