Car UK May 2019

88 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | MAY 2019

smell was so bad I couldn’t have it back.’ There followed a Mini Cooper on

Webers, an Austin-Healey MkIII and then ‘some pretty average road cars’.

‘And then I made my first bit of money [he had successful careers in

photography and advertising before taking over the estate]. I saw this

Ferrari Lusso for sale. It was mad, this car. It wasn’t that old, because this

was 1980. It was absolutely stunning, silver with the light blue interior. It

was really cool. It was £21,000 and I went all the way to Yorkshire to see it.

And that was my first mistake.’

And why was that a mistake?

‘Because I didn’t buy it! I was always a bit of a Porsche fan anyway,

so instead I got a 924 Carrera GT. They were only made in ’81 and it was

£17,000. But I had it for a long time. I ran it on the road for 10 years before

I blew it up at Silverstone. I did my world record run from Goodwood to

London in that. I’ll tell you what the time was, but you can’t print it.’

With most of the world’s car makers as clients, the Duke is more guarded

about his current choice of daily driver, but is happy to own up to the two

parked outside. We leave the cups to Monty and walk down to poke around

them. ‘They launched the 911 GT2 RS here and I said to Porsche I ought to

buy one as it’s now a Goodwood car. Then they actually called me up to

confirm the sale, so I thought I’d better do it.

‘Charlie and I [his eldest son and heir] picked it up from Mayfair and

drove it back here in the pouring rain, so we weren’t really driving it at all.

We mainly use it on the track here. We’ve had it since August and done very

few miles in it.

‘With the Defender, we heard they were doing a V8, so we had to have

one. It’s great fun on shoots. It’s actually number one of 150. I didn’t know

they were giving me the first one until it arrived.’

We only have time to drive one before lunch. I pick the Land Rover, rea-

soning that no experience will ever out-English being driven up the drive of

his stately home by a Duke in a V8 Defender. Our progress is anything but

stately. Charles drives like he owns the road, which of course he does. This

is the same stretch on which he first blew piston rings in his go-kart and

he hustles the Defender with the same enthusiasm, making the off-road

rubber squirm and squeal with every turn of the wheel and stamp of the

brake, and gunning that riotous V8 to place the car’s cliff-like prow inches

from photographer Sam as he hangs out of the back of the camera car.

The Duke is chuckling as he drives; genuinely engrossed and delighted.

‘It’s not slow, is it? And it actually goes round corners and stops pretty well.

Have you driven one? No? Oh you’ve GOT to have a go. Let’s swap.’

Mucking around with cars like this, there’s a sense of fun and mischief

about him that you wouldn’t expect of a 64-year-old duke. But he is a duke,

and for all its sharp branding and modern marketing appeal, Goodwood

remains one of our great ducal estates. One man is in charge, and his staff

sit a little straighter in their seats as he passes. His job is simply to pass ‘this

place’, as he refers to it, to his son in better condition than that in which he

inherited it.

‘The fundamental thing is that one is responsible for it for a certain

amount of time and one doesn’t want to mess it up. For the estate to be

sustainable it’s got to make quite a lot of money. We haven’t got any share-

holders or anybody else we’re answerable to, so we can do it how we want

to. It shouldn’t feel commercial, though. And I hope it doesn’t. It should feel

like a huge, great shared experience.’

There’s a loose and unwritten rule that the running of the great estates

is passed onto the heir at the age of 40. The current Duke is so indelibly

associated with Goodwood’s motorsport renaissance that the idea of

anyone else at the wheel is worrying. But Charles’ son Charlie – all heirs to

the Duchy of Richmond have been Charles since Charles II illegitimately

sired the first in 1672 – plainly has some petrol in that blue blood.

‘He is 24, and has just left Oxford and started his first job. Ultimately he’ll

be responsible for the whole estate and fortunately he’s very keen on his

cars. He’s got a very nice E-Type, and he keeps trying to get himself insured

on the GT2, which is funny. He’s raced at Revival and he’s a good driver. He

can take a Nascar up the hill now, he’s really confident.’

Sounds like we’ll be in safe hands. But how much longer do we have this

Charles for?

‘The gap between Charlie and me is 15 years bigger than the gap between

me and my father was,’ he says. ‘It can be tough. There’s no such thing as a

free coffee. I’m rather dreading it’ – you know he isn’t – ‘but you’ve probably

got me for another 10 years.’

Nothing will out-English

being driven up the drive of

his stately home by a Duke

in a V8 Defender. Progress

is anything but stately

The book that fuelled the pre-Duke Duke’s teenage automotive fantasies

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