Gentlemen, start your engines Sunday, December 06, 2009 By Gavin Daly In the depths of the English countryside, on a gloomy autumn day, a group is gathering from around the world for a sort of stag party from a parallel universe.
Everyone is well dressed, polite and quietly interested in where the others have come from, how they’re enjoying their visit, whether they think it will rain before the day is out. The understated chatter hides the real purpose of the day, and the weather question has a relevance that is not immediately obvious from its seemingly innocent framing.
For the location of this gathering is the Goodwood Motor Circuit in deepest, greenest Suffolk - in operation for more than 60 years and home to the Festival of Speed and the Goodwood Revival.
And the reason we are all here? To drive a range of Aston Martin supercars. Hence the preoccupation with the weather - a touch of rain on the track could make all the difference.
Over coffee and miniature breakfast sandwiches, the assembled men - and it is vastly, predominantly men - begin to ooh and aah over the line-up for the day. There is a time trial in single-seater Caterham sportscars, a speed lap with Aston Martin Racing driver Stefan Mucke, a pit-stop experience on the Aston Martin Racing Le Mans model, and a bit of pottering around - on the Goodwood track and the public road - in cars that go from zero to 60mph in little more than four seconds.
It’s enough to bring the most reserved of gentlemen to life, and we have a few of those in our midst. Top dog is gentleman extraordinaire Jeremy Hackett, the soft spoken founder of menswear firm Hackett.
Not the most obvious speedster, Hackett’s company has a tie-up with Aston Martin Racing and he has brought us al l along to Goodwood as his guests.
Hackett is an old-school tailor who opened his first store more than 25 years ago on the New King’s Road in London. Hackett is now owned by Pepe, with dozens of stores around the world and a loyal following for what he calls his ‘‘essential British kit’’, which stretches from clothing to cufflinks, luggage and men’s grooming products.
Hackett is something of a star; in Japan recently, he says - slightly bemused - that he was asked by a customer to sign one of his Aston Martin Racing jackets.
Hackett readily acknowledges the difficulties of selling his British message in Ireland, where it has been adapted as ‘essential gentlemen’s kit’ - with a range for ‘Little Britons’ having been renamed ‘Young Ones’.
Sales in his sole Dublin store - which was opened in 2007 by Hackett and rugby star Jonny Wilkinson - are holding up although trading is tough for everyone, he says.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, Hackett’s mantra seems to have set the fashion tone for the day at Goodwood, with lots of stylish tweeds, cords, button-down shirts and a wool cardigan or two in evidence - even on the Italians and Portuguese.
One larger-than-life guest of Hackett’s has travelled from Germany in plus-fours, knee-length socks, a tweed waistcoat and red brogues.
The only Irishman in the gathering, I have read diplomatic comments Hackett made in the past, that Irish people tend to have a ‘‘relaxed approach to life, which reflects in their dress sense’’.
I ditch my jeans and fleece in favour of dark cords, a shirt and V-neck jumper - but I still feel distinctly underdressed.
More surprisingly, Hackett also takes the lead in the driving stakes, with an aggressive lap in the Caterham cars, where we throw the lightweight racers in and out between traffic cones and are actively encouraged to do ‘doughnuts’.
He loses out marginally to a softly-spoken gentleman from Esquire magazine who wears a tank top over his shirt and tie.
On the speed lap, we get a closer look at the Aston Martin relationship, where Hackett’s brand is emblazoned even on the fireproof suits that Mucke and his colleagues wear. Not that there is much time to look at that, as Mucke hits speeds approaching 160mph around the Goodwood tarmac. It’s like a precisely-timed - and mildly terrifying - rollercoaster ride.
We later hear this is a slow lap because the track is a bit damp - at Le Mans, where the team ranked as the fastest petrol entry, they averaged 145mph consistently over 24 hours. Their top speed: more than 210mph.
These things come up for discussion at lunch, but in a decidedly more refined way than your average stag party.
There is also a debate on whether the ‘gentleman’ is dead (a debate that has been going on in certain English circles for decades, according to Hackett)an d who is dressing ‘James Bond’ these days (American Tom Ford, who took over from Brioni, the Italian fashion house).
The tank-top guest poses a question for Aston Martin:
‘‘One wonders how they felt about their car turning upside down in Casino Royale?” It’s a fair question, but one is left wondering how many people start their sentences with the word ‘one’ these days.
Clearly, the gentleman is not dead. There is even some very British laughter about Bond’s ‘‘ill-advised’’ dalliance with BMW before he was restored to his rightful place behind the wheel of an Aston Martin.
Never mind that the deal is reported to have cost Aston Mar t in more than stg£30 million - he just belongs there. (One’s blushes are spared, as nobody remarks that the BMW-driving Bond was an Irishman.)
Then it is on to the real business of the day: taking our pick of the Aston Martin range under the supervision of expert drivers who have earned their stripes on racing circuits.
On the track, they encourage (a lot of) speed and total control - it’s just getting the balance right that’s the problem.
‘‘Attack the corners, attack, attack . . .” Then, at a rapidly-approaching (in a six-litreV12, everything approaches rapidly) right-angle turn: ‘‘Brake a bit . . . A bit more, A BITMORE!” Out on the roads of east Sussex, feeling like Bond in a new DBS, it’s blindingly exhilarating. The oncoming traffic passes in a blur: an Opel Corset, a Ford Mondeo, a futuristic-looking Rolls-Royce.
Then something peculiar - another Rolls Royce, then another. I’m driving the top-of-the-range Aston Martin, but there are other cars trying to steal my 510 brake-horsepower thunder.
Only later does the reason become apparent - down the road from Goodwood is Rolls-Royce’s massive new head office and ‘silent factory’, where the car maker’s latest model, the Ghost, is assembled by hand.
It is an appropriately stylish discovery to end an experience that has been British to the core. And one had a jolly good time.
Hackett has 20 per cent off its range of clothing and accessories at its store on South Anne Street, Dublin 2 this Tuesday. The store is open from 10am-8pm
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