While the Goodwood Historics are a celebration of racing history and technological advancement, they are not some sort of hamburger cruise up a hill. Nope, the racers and the cars all get driven like they are heading to a fire at the top of Lord March’s driveway and that is what makes the event so damned cool. Take this video where we ride up the hill in a 500hp open cockpit racer.
The car is a Renault Alpine A442 and while it is not some ancient historical racing relic, it was old enough to qualify for the event and put on a show for the fans. The driver of the car is Rene Arnoux who had a great career in F1 and recorded seven victories during his tenure on what most people consider the top racing series planet Earth.
Arnoux is smooth and while not completely on the ragged edge, he has the car working pretty well and it sounds good. The car is a sports prototype machine that was built by Alpine and paid for by Alpine’s owner Renault. These cars ran at Lemans in 1976, 1977, and 1978 winning the event on the last attempt.
The engine is a 2.2L V6 that (as we said) make 500hp and the car itself weighs about 1,600lbs. That is a pretty stout power to weight ratio. This is an earlier (1976/77) model as it does not appear to have the bobble style partial roof that the latest models got. Those roof bubbles helped to increase the top speed of the car and make it the winning combo at LeMans.
It is fun to see a true master at the wheel doing what he does best. We also think that the engine (even for a V6) sounds pretty flipping sweet.
