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The Goodwood Festival of Speed is a car lover's paradise (pictures)

We headed to the Goodwood Festival of Speed to see all the supercars, classic racers and custom creations that this motoring celebration has to offer.

Andrew Lanxon
Andrew is CNET's go-to guy for product coverage and lead photographer for Europe. When not testing the latest phones, he can normally be found with his camera in hand, behind his drums or eating his stash of home-cooked food. Sometimes all at once.
Andrew Lanxon
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Welcome to the Goodwood Festival of Speed, a three-day event held in the South of England, dedicated to motoring in all its many forms.

The festival plays home to a vast selection of cars, including classic racers, one-of-a-kind custom creations, modern supercars and souped-up road-legal hot hatchbacks. Even a walk around the car parks can show you a mouth-watering selection of vehicles from the likes of Lamborghini, Ferrari and McLaren.

If you've ever had to take a cold shower after seeing your favourite car, then Goodwood is the place for you.

I popped along to this year's event, camera in hand, to see just what this celebration of moving metal has to offer.

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One of the most exciting new cars to be shown off within Goodwood's grounds was the newly-updated BAC Mono.

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It looks just as stealthy as its predecessor but now comes with a more powerful 2.5-litre engine. It may seem like a car designed only for the racetrack, but it includes seat belts, indicators and other features which make it a legal road car.

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Here's XCAR's Drew Stearne chatting with racing driver and BAC tester Oliver Webb.

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Webb later showed a little of what the new Mono can do by speeding his way up Goodwood's hillclimb course.

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The 1.16-mile hillclimb played host to a wide variety of fancy cars throughout the festival. Here's Aston Martin's new angry-looking Vulcan.

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I watched Audi's LMP1 car tackle the gruelling Le Mans 24-hour endurance race a few weeks ago in France. Audi lost the Le Mans race to Porsche, but it was still great to see this car back on a track.

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Stunt driver and internet favourite Ken Block took the new Ford Focus RS up the hillclimb. Sadly, his run didn't feature his usual repertoire of power-slides, donuts and similar tricks that you can see in his awesome gymkhana videos.

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If you like looking at fancy cars careering around corners, Goodwood really is the place to be.

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Iconic aerial display team the Red Arrows made an appearance for the show, streaking across the sky with their red, white and blue smoke generators on. The Red Arrows are always a pleasure to see.

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The Red Arrows are comprised of the best jet pilots in the country. They're able to perform the most heart-stopping aerial acrobatics -- such as flying along upside down, as shown here. Just imagine what it must be like to fly a jet at 500mph while upside down. The mind boggles.

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Some of the post-apocalyptic cars from the new "Mad Max: Fury Road" movie were on display, for those people who like their cars less modern and polished.

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It doesn't exactly look luxurious on the inside.

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Trials riders on bikes, both powered and pedal, took to the dirt jumps and obstacle courses at the Goodwood Action Sports area.

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Flipping brilliant.

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150,000 people attend Festival of Speed over the three days it takes place. It can get busy, so expect to queue for food and drink stands.

The central display statue has been a regular feature since 1997 -- each year it is designed to honour a different car manufacturer. This year was Mazda's turn.

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Major manufacturers like Ford go all out on their stands, hoping to be more eye-catching than their competitors. Ford's stand not only had a GT supercar strung up on wires, but also had a slide taking you effortlessly from the top to the bottom.

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Oh look, it's XCAR's own Alex Goy, resplendent in his fire-proof racing overalls. But why?

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It's because he was given the honour of driving this classic Jaguar E-Type up the hillclimb course.

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A more modern Jaguar here, this car will act as one of the support vehicles for the Bloodhound SSC land-speed record attempt next year.

I got up close and personal with the rocket-powered Bloodhound last year at its production facility in Bristol. It's a hugely exciting project and the car will propel driver Wing Commander Andy Green up to 1,000mph across the South African desert.

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Not all cars make it up the hillclimb in one piece. Thankfully nobody was hurt.

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Peugeot showed off this 308 R -- a concept hybrid with some aggressive good looks. Sadly, it's not available to buy.

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The 308 has some awesome-looking wheels.

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Peugeot also had some of its rally cars on display.

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That's one hell of an engine. Sadly, this beast wasn't operating.

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Think you can outrun the law? If they're in this McLaren 650S, think again.

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Honda's cars were all packed up like toys. It may be a stroke of marketing genius, asking you to "collect the set". I'm not convinced it's a tactic that will work, but you can't blame Honda for trying.

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XCAR's Drew Stearne took to the passenger seat of this Morgan Aero 8.

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It's a nice-looking piece of metal on the track.

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More aesthetically-unusual was this Delahaye type 165 cabriolet from 1939.

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Both high-performance ultra-modern cars and classic older racers took to the hillclimb course.

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This Rolls Royce was among the heavier cars on the course, resulting in a significant amount of tyre squeal as it took to the corners.

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Massive trucks got plenty of attention at the show too.

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