Check Out Pictures from This Year's Goodwood Revival, the Ultimate Vintage Car Event

The Goodwood Motor Circuit, built around a World War II–era Royal Air Force base, hosted motorsports events from 1948 to 1968. Thirty years after competition ended, it began again, and it did so as if no time at all had passed. That was the result of a 10-year effort to restore the place back to its race-era heyday. Twenty-five years later, the Goodwood Revival has really perfected the time-traveling formula. All the cars on the track are those that could have competed in-period, and they include both racing legends (Ferrari 250GTO, an ex–Tazio Nuvolari Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Monza, an ex–Juan Manuel Fangio C-type Jaguar) and the delightfully obscure (Austin A40, Ford Zodiac, BMW 700). Despite the precious machinery, the racing action is surprisingly intense, with shunts and spins regularly claiming victims regardless of price or pedigree (we saw a Bizzarrini 5300GT stuffed into the wall and a Ferrari 250GTO catch fire).

This year's themes included 75 years of Lotus, Carroll Shelby, and a single-marque race of Porsche 911s all from 1965. Some famous names can find themselves in unlikely machinery: Jimmie Johnson in an Austin A40, Jenson Button in an Alfa Romeo Giulietta, Tom Kristensen in an Austin A90. Sweltering heat on Saturday set a record for September. Then, on Sunday, drivers had to contend with intermittent showers that kept things extra-spicy.

The 100,000-plus attendees embrace the ethos by dressing in '40s, '50s, or '60s garb, and the staff is similarly turned out. Some 600 employees work to make the event what it is, and the level of detail is amazing. And yet sponsorship director Mark Featherstone may have touched on the real secret of the Revival when he said, "We don't take ourselves too seriously."