The incredible MG central feature at the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed

For not only is it a feat of engineering witchcraft, it also sees a splash of colour brought to the front-of-house sculpture for 2024. Designed as always by visionary creator Gerry Judah, the sculpture captures what are the two defining elements of MG: lightweight design and clever engineering. It’s definitely a feast for the imagination that we’re sure will have the engineer in everyone scratching their head as to how it all works. Visually also, there’s an ‘early days of aviation’ vibe with the suspension cables criss-crossing like the wing supports on a shed-build biplane.

As you can see, the red spar is suspended perfectly at the centre of the giant steel circle by an array of metal cabling, with no need for any hard ‘legs’ to hold it. On the spar, definitive open-top sportscars representing MG’s past and future, the MG B and the new MG Cyberster, which proudly overlook the house and the Hill.

Founded in 1924 by Cecil Kimber, it was first known as Morris Garages and built sporting and competition cars with conventional cars as their basis. As such, MG is one of the oldest purely sporting motoring brands still operating to this day. And there really is a focus on sporting personality and dynamics, from the little MG 3 hatchback, all the way up to the high-performance Cyberster.

MG and Goodwood have history together as well, as you’d expect for such a long-lived racing brand. The current Duke of Richmond’s grandfather, Freddie March, raced a team of MGs pre-war, taking victory at the Brooklands Double Twelve in 1931. MG sportscars were a constant presence at the Motor Circuit during Goodwood’s golden era from 1948 to 1966 and feature regularly at our latter-day historic motorsport events.

The 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed is underway, and you can watch every moment of the action on our live stream right here on GRR!

Photography courtesy of Peter Summers