► Monster Le Mans cars at Goodwood in March
► Group 5 celebration at 74th Members’ Meeting
► Porsche 917s, Ferrari 512s, Lola T70s galore
Sussex will reverberate to the sound of many cylinders and thousands of horsepower in March, as no fewer than 16 of the scariest sports racing cars in Le Mans history will take to the track for a high-speed display as part of 2016’s 74th Goodwood Members’ Meeting.
Each car in the display is from the Group 5 era in the early 1970s, arguably sportscar racing’s most iconic age of all; the one filled with epic machines such as the Porsche 917, Ferrari 512 and Lola T70, and immortalised on celluloid by Steve McQueen’s Le Mans movie epic.
Read Ben Oliver’s review of the Steve McQueen: The Man and Le Mans documentary in CAR+
There’ll be at least six Porsche 917s in the display, and a few ex-Le Mans winners to peddle them, including Jackie Oliver and Richard Attwood – who scooped Porsche’s first ever Le Mans win in 1970.
All of which is a good excuse for a picture gallery of some of the droolworthy machines expected in the display. Scroll through the gallery in the picture switcher above, and the column below.
Porsche’s 917 is perhaps the most iconic Le Mans car of all time
Ferrari’s beautiful 512S and blockier 512M were the Porsche 917’s principal opposition in period
The Ferrari 512S morphed through short- and longtail, roofed and Spyder guises
The Porsche 917 also tried various tail lengths, some in search of top speed and some in search of stability
This is the ‘Langheck’ long-tail 917
What is it about racing cars and Martini stripes that’s so evocative?
The brutally beautiful Lola T70 MkIIIB. There’s some car to go with that engine, too