Following “Collecting Car Stuff and Car People”, please read chapter two of Stephen Bayley’s portrait on Lord March:
»Lord March is the keeper of Goodwood’s flame. The privileges bring responsibilities. The latter include maintaining a fine James Wyatt house from the eighteenth century with its stupendous collection of museum-quality art, the world’s most beautiful (horse) racecourse, a pioneering organic farm with best-selling beer, meat and cheese, a country club and golf course, an aerodrome, a vast piece of West Sussex as well as his wonderful champagne-fuelled car events.
Goodwood always was and has now become even more the triple distillation of Englishness: a beautiful, aristocratic house in a landscaped park. In 1940 Spitfires flew from here to fight in The Battle of Britain. The motor-racing that began on the old airfield in 1948 was a symbol of the country’s post-war revival. That was until Stirling Moss’ nearly fatal crash in 1962. The mood changed and racing stopped in 1966. At first cautiously, then with enlarging confidence, motor-sport has been restored to Goodwood.
First came The Festival of Speed and, second, The Revival. One, a rush up the hill in the most fabulous cars you have ever seen. The second, the ultimate garden-party for car lovers. Very few have enjoyed the pleasure of having simple childhood pleasures evolve into a fully realized fantasy… a fantasy which we can all, ever so briefly, inhabit if we visit Goodwood.
I call him Charles and have done so during the thirty years since we first started bumping into each other in a south-west London pizzeria some Sunday nights. In those days he was a photographer with long hair and torn jeans. We once worked together on perfume advertisements. And Charles once worked with director Stanley Kubrick, doing stills on his movie shoots. He still exhibits his photographs, most recently in Moscow, but he revealingly explained that he got into photography in the first place because he loved the cameras. Start him on this subject and he gets whimsically articulate about the Asahi Pentax Spotmatic.
I have often asked him about his inspirations. Motor-racing is in his blood. Once, he pulled a copy of Ralph Stein’s ancient Treasures of the Automobile off a shelf. A lordly finger lovingly traced the outline of a V-12 Delahaye. “My grandfather (the 9th Duke) gave me this book. I used to copy the photographs in drawings” he explained. And then we went outside. He pulled back a tarpaulin and showed me a lovely AC with dignified bodywork designed by that same grandfather.
Nowadays, his people at Goodwood call him, with no trace of aristocratic deference, “The Boss”. He finds this amusing, but does not demur. His Goodwood is one of England’s great country houses and if the James Wyatt design of 1790 leaves architectural historians puzzled by its reticence, this is more than compensated by superb managed vistas of picturesque parkland blurring into countryside with distant views of Chichester Cathedral and the sea beyond. I once stupidly asked Charles where he was going on holiday. He arched his eyebrows, looked around and said “Why would I want to go anywhere else?” …»
To read the last chapter of the Lord March portrait please follow our blog or download the app Classic Car Collector for iPad. There you’ll find the complete portrait on Lord March.
photo info: Mercedes-Benz W 165 Tripolis-Rennwagen (1939). Goodwood FoS 2011. © Daimler
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