Apple designer Jonny Ive. Actress Emma Corrin. Ferrari’s chief designer Flavio Manzoni. Industrial designer Marc Newson. Acclaimed journalist Nicholas Foulkes. You only have to glance at the roll call of names assembled by the Duke of Richmond and Cartier to judge the annual Style et Luxe to appreciate how special this concours competition really is. Billed as a celebration of the beautiful, the imaginative and the innovative in automotive design, the Cartier Style et Luxe comprised 50 cars across eight categories.

Our magnificent 1962 Ferrari 400 Superamerica SWB Coupé Aerodinamico (click here to discover more) formed part of the class ‘Enzo’s Ferraris – The Commendatore’s Cars’ and was vying for the judge’s adoration against such beautiful Prancing Horses as a 275 GTB resplendent in Verde Pino and a delectable 246 Dino GT. Sure enough, the swooping, dramatic lines and abundant jewel-like details of our Superamerica won the judge’s hearts. The car was awarded the Winner of the Class trophy and I had the privilege of collecting it during the star-studded prizegiving ceremony on Sunday afternoon. What an honour!

In what felt like an especially busy Festival of Speed and in spite of Saturday’s weather-forced cancelation, highlights for us here at Girardo & Co. were aplenty and typically ‘Goodwood’ in their nature. Sitting down for lunch ’twixt Sir Jackie Stewart and his son Mark, for example, nipping for a pre-ball beer at a local pub and spying Juha Kankkunen enjoying his supper or ambling into the Driver’s Club late on Friday evening to find the changing rooms crammed with priceless old motorcycles, sheltered from the wind.

If we had to choose one standout moment, however, it would have to be when Max was afforded the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to drive the Joest Racing Porsche WSC-95 – the car which won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in both 1996 and 1997. And the car in which the nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen made his debut at La Sarthe.

In this, its 75th anniversary year, Porsche was the featured marque at this year’s Festival and the TWR-built WSC-95 led a celebratory moment in front of Goodwood House each day. Max was alongside the yellow New Man-sponsored 956B which won the French endurance classic in 1985 and 1986 and just about every other significant Porsche from the last seven-and-a-half decades. Esteemed company indeed.

According to Max, the open Le Mans Prototype was quintessentially Porsche to drive. “To say I was nervous beforehand was an understatement,” he explains, “especially when the heavens opened just before the run! In hindsight, there was nothing to be worried about – it turns out the WSC-95 is a really approachable car to drive. Don’t get me wrong there is enormous power on tap, but even from trundling up the hill, I could sense why it made for such a fantastic endurance racing car.”

While as a company, we’ve turned our focus in 2023 towards exceptional road and sports-racing cars, especially those built by Ferrari, there will always be a place in our hearts for the rally cars we’ve championed so heavily since we set up shop back in 2016.

At Goodwood we had the privilege of having three rally cars in action on the hill: a 1992 Lancia Delta HF Integrale Evo 1 with two World Rally Championship victories under its belt, the Citroën C4 WRC in which Sébastién Loeb won four rounds on his way to winning the 2008 World Rally Championship and the Subaru Impreza WRC the late, great Colin McRae drove to victory on the 1997 Safari Rally.

Fresh out of an exhaustive two-year restoration with Prodrive and looking every bit as good as the day it left Banbury bound for Kenya 26 years ago, ‘P8 WRC’ was rather fittingly driven by Colin McRae’s father Jimmy and in the presence of Alister, Hollie and Max – the rest of the McRae rallying dynasty. Pleasingly, Jimmy pedaled the Subaru with the sort of gusto we’re confident would have made Colin smile!

Of course, hundreds of thousands of words will have been devoted to the Goodwood Festival of Speed over the course of the last few days, both online and in print, such is the global influence and organizational mastery of the Duke of Richmond and his team. For us here at Girardo & Co., there is no greater stage on which to exhibit our brand. It is an honour to be invited back each year. So much so that we’re already plotting for 2024.

Photos courtesy of Robert Cooper

If you’d like to discover more about the 1962 Ferrari 400 Superamerica SWB Coupé Aerodinamico we’re currently offering for sale, please click here.