Goodwood 2025: highlights from the Cartier lawn 

The lawn of Goodwood Festival of Speed’s Cartier Style et Luxe exhibit is where car design calm can reliably be found. On an annual basis its curators manage to mix the beautifully rare with the sometimes slightly bizarre, with a deftness, expertise and charm that is hard to find anywhere else on the classic car planet.

2025’s edition kept up its usual high standard. One-of-one 1920s Rolls-Royce Phantom Mk1s parked next to a ‘svelte of Superleggeras’ including bodies for a 1948 Bristol 401 and 1951 Ferrari 212 Export Berlinetta. Then just a few paces away, elegant 1960s Facel Vegas shared lawn space with graphic 1970s and ’90s BMW Alpinas and brutal ’00s Bugatti Veyrons. 

And in true Goodwood style, there were a few seemingly incongruous, but actually superb vans too, including a 1959 Austin 101 which wouldn’t look out of place on the UK kids TV show Postman Pat or perhaps as a back-up vehicle for a directional Sylvanian family. Wonderful. 

Anyway, after looping round the lawn a few times and trying to capture that essence on camera, here’s our CDN 2025 Goodwood Cartier Top Ten.

1. 1951 Bentley Mark VI Cresta II Facel Métallon

Who doesn’t love it when two powerhouse brands collaborate: Gucci x Adidas, Travis Scott x Air Jordan, Morgan x Superdry (okay, the last one was a travesty and my little joke, however you get the picture). But who knew that Facel and Bentley went collabo-crazy back in the early 1950s? Described as a “daring blend of French flair and British grandeur” by the Cartier curators, I’m inclined to agree. The one-of-one was commissioned by Jean Daninos, the visionary behind Facel Vega, and the resulting Bentley Mark VI Cresta II Facel Métallon certainly does it for me (and it also turns out, for the Cartier judging panel too, who awarded it ‘Overall Best of Show’). 

2. 1926 Rolls-Royce Phantom I Brougham de Ville

The exterior of the Rolls-Royce Phantom I is a bit like the Air Jordan Mk1 – reliable and good, but not necessarily the best or most original in the series. But the interior of this Brougham de Ville is next-level luxurious and stands above all the other cabins on 2025’s Cartier lawn. It also delivered the ‘dash-mounted fake-flower-in-vase’ look long before, and way more classily, than the VW Beetle’s hippy crew. 

3. 1951 Ferrari 212 Export Berlinetta

It’s hard to leave out Ferrari from any upmarket classic car show, but this year’s Cartier crew found a special version: a one-of-four Carrozzeria Touring Berlinetta constructed on the competition spec Ferrari 212 Export chassis. It has tidy provenance too: originally owned and raced by Enzo Ferrari’s personal tailor Augusto Caraceni who obviously had an eye for great proportions, stance and detail. And who doesn’t love a leather bonnet strap? 

4. 1948 Bristol 401 Superleggera Saloon

Another one-of-one, this 1948 Bristol 401 was shipped from England to Milan to be given a Superleggera (“superlight”) aluminium body by Carrozzeria Touring. Another fabulous collaboration between English engineering and Italian artistry, the car also has a chequered history: debuting at the 1949 Geneva Motor Show, then languishing in a Swiss scrapyard in the 1970s, before being saved and brought back to Concours quality in time for the 1997 Villa d’Este Concorso d’Eleganza. Fairytale stuff.

 5. 1959 Austin 101 van

The Cartier Style et Luxe lawn loves a wildcard category among the traditional coupés and supercars, and this year a ‘delivery of vans’ provided it. Our personal pick of the bunch was a 1959 Austin 101. Mechanically identical to the Morris Type JB van, this Austin has a lower, body-coloured and altogether more subtle grille and now sports a two-tone “rhubarb and custard” colour British Railways livery. Essential Goodwood.

 6. 1964 Facel Vega Facel II

Although this car looks about seven metres long – and no, I didn’t snap this with the 0.5 setting on my iPhone – the Facel II is actually only 4,750mm in length. Its ultra-low 1,280mm height and decent 1,760mm width are the visual keys to making it look so long, plus a generous rear overhang and perhaps its rearward sloping front and rear wheel arches. Either way, it’s an exciting car to marvel at. And how good do those delicate rear orange lights perched on the ridge of each rear fender look? Magnificent French-ness.

7. 1964 Lamborghini 350 GT

Compare the angular cars on the 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed’s Lamborghini stand and the curvy 350 GT on the Cartier lawn just across the Hillclimb bridge and you can see the now famous Italian brand has come a long way. But there’s still a charm to the slightly odd 350 GT, courtesy of a Carrozzeria Touring body with its patented ‘Superleggera’ lightweight construction method – using a framework of fine steel tubes beneath hand-formed alloy panels. There’s also major league provenance too: this vehicle is the sixth Lamborghini ever built and the car that launched the model at the 1964 Paris Motor Show. Not a hexagon in sight.

8. 1976 BMW Alpina 528 B6

One of Alpina and BMW’s earliest collaborations, this vehicle was based on the BMW E12 platform and manufactured in 1976. Alpina’s BMWs have always been about sporting enhancement and performance – and this one has enhanced fuel injection, suspension, brakes and a limited-slip differential – but it’s also frankly stunning just to look at standing still in mid-green, with fluorescent light green and flat grey graphics. All day, every day.

9. 1992 BMW Alpina B12 5.7 Coupé

This B12 5.7-litre V12 Coupé – one of just 57 made – is the physical embodiment of ‘automotive swagger’. The red one on the Cartier lawn was also Alpina’s official press car at the 1992 Paris International Auto Show and number two off the production line. Based on the BMW 850CSi it may be, but this model’s engine, suspension and design tweaks – including extended bonnet louvres and those intricately interlocking but subtle gold Alpina side stripe graphics – elevate this model to a higher plane.

10. 2009 Bugatti Veyron 16.4

When the 1000bhp, 252mph Bugatti Veyron first made production in 2005, it wasn’t to everyone’s taste either aesthetically or in terms of what it stood for. But the design – both inside and out – and the incredible engineering effort that went into its creation has kept the 450 made firmly in the ‘one million-plus club’, whatever mainstream currency you choose. Overseen by VW Group veteran and Car Design News Lifetime Achievement Award winner Hartmut Warkuss and penned by a young Jozef Kaban, the exterior is often specified in two-tone or darker colours, but out of the seven (!) Veyrons on Cartier’s lawn, this Pearl White version with Lake Blue interior caught our eye the most. Modern classic.