The Goodwood Festival of Speed featured all sorts of exotic electrified vehicles this year, from Max Verstappen in the current Red Bull Formula 1 car to a somewhat crumpled Lotus Evija X, which crashed into the wall when all 1,704 Nm of torque were suddenly released through the four driven wheels.
A bit more prosaically, we got to see the new Ford Capri – complete with obligatory furry dice hanging off the rear view mirror (I’m not even making that bit up) – and what seemed to be everyone’s favourite electric car: the achingly retro cute Renault 5. Which looks even more interesting in souped-up Alpine guise.
But it wasn’t just about modern machinery, or even 1980s throwbacks (although the Audi Quattro on the rally stage was one of my favourite vehicles of the weekend). The oldest car to go up the famous Goodwood hill was a 1924 Targa Florio Mercedes, which was built in roughly the same year that rock legends The Who first got together: the headline band at the black tie ball hosted by Lord March on Saturday evening.
‘Who are you?’ was one of the opening numbers that they sang to each other and the distinguished crowd. With their advancing years and prodigious consumption of narcotic stimulants over the years, it was probably a genuine question. But after several bottles of free-flow Champagne, nobody really knew the answer.
The Goodwood Festival of Speed has something for everyone, even if rather than sex, drugs, and rock and roll, what you’re really into is rubber. There are a lot of us out there who have that particular kink, which is why we were also very excited to see Pirelli’s new Cyber Tyre at Goodwood: which basically acts as a giant sensor to read the road ahead.
I spent a lot of time looking after guests, which is never an easy task. Keeping the show on the road – as well as everyone corralled in one place – was another electric vehicle, which turned out to be the star of Goodwood: in my eyes at least.
True, it wasn’t quite as quick as the diminutive McMurtry Speirling: the Goodwood hillclimb record-holder, which accelerates from 0-60mph in less than a second and half. However, you can fit a McMurtry in the boot of my new favourite electric machine, and at least there’s no risk of choking on your fillings when you put your foot down. Despite being basically a van, it’s also more aesthetically pleasing than the McMurtry, which somehow can’t help looking a bit like a Le Mans car for dwarves.
So, I give you the Citroën e-SpaceTourer, which actually sounds like it should be the transport of choice for Captain Jean-Luc Picard, rather than a mundane shuttle to move people around. Both are suitably French, and Citroën is also now owned by Stellantis – which sounds like a car company that definitely gets interstellar exploration.
But the truth is that we’re instead talking about an electric people carrier, with a certain refreshing honesty about it, as it doesn’t even pretend for one moment to be a ‘lifestyle’ choice. Instead, it’s just practical, cavernous transport for up to nine people reinvented for the electric age – very much in the spirit of Citroën’s traditional genre-defying load-luggers that have ranged all the way from the 2CV to the Berlingo (also available as an electric car now, and still with a passing resemblance to the original that appeared back in 1996).
The e-SpaceTourer – based on the Citroën Dispatch van – has been recently updated with the company’s new corporate look and is powered by a 50 Kwh battery that’s good for about 150 miles of range: especially if you use the ‘eco’ mode that blunts performance in favour of more miles (I used it pretty much all the time).
While the driving experience is never going to be as dynamic as most things you see at Goodwood, the Citroën is a pleasant enough place to spend time: the driving position is nicely high, giving a commanding perspective on the road, and the satnav along with other ergonomics are nice and easy to use (there are even proper buttons for things like air conditioning, so you don’t have to ferret away through various sub-menus on the touch screen to find it, like some form of digital architectural dig).
Those in the back were able to stretch out in comfort – unsurprisingly, vans actually tend to carry more people in more comfort than actual ‘people carriers’ – while those in the front enjoyed a wrap-around panoramic view of the various traffic jams leading to Goodwood House.
Once you got there of course it was all worth it, but if you need to transport a lot of people in a lot of traffic, the e-SpaceTourer makes complete sense. It may not quite boldly go where no man has gone before, but it will certainly get you and your fellow voyagers to Goodwood and back.
For more information on the Citroën e-SpaceTourer, please visit: www.citroen.co.uk.
Author Bio:
Anthony Peacock works as a journalist and is the owner of an international communications agency, all of which has helped take him to more than 80 countries across the world.
Photographs courtesy of Citroën
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