Gentleman’s Journal x Polestar at the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed

Gentleman’s Journal x Polestar at the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed | The Gentleman's Journal

Is there anything the Swedes can’t do? On Thursday, down at Goodwood’s Festival of Speed, in the thick of the wettest and most miserable summer since records began, a minor miracle was arranged — a day of almost unmitigated sunshine and warmth. Sitting in the Partners Enclosure by the heat-shimmering track, a couple of buckets of pink Veuve beading beneath the trees, the guests of Gentleman’s Journal could only imagine that this act of weather-fixing had been performed by their hosts, Polestar. (They can make miraculous cars, the logic went — so why not miraculous days, too?)

Spurred on by the perfect conditions, Creed McKinnon and Daniel Fletcher took to the race track for a hot-lap in the lightning-quick Polestar 2, before everyone else decamped onto the brand’s hydro-foil Candela boat for a jaunt across the local lake. Still the sun shone. Still the champagne frothed. Still Eric Underwood’s laughter drowned out the roar of the engines.

Back at the handsome Bailiffscourt Hotel, a beautiful English garden had been thoroughly improved by the presence of two fine Swedish electric vehicles, which sat on the lawn like stately guests of honour for the evening fun. Polestar designer Nahum Escobedo talked the gathered guests through the process of creating the Polestars 2 and 3 — a multi-year journey he likened to raising a child, albeit a child with a 392 mile battery range. Over a barbecue of beef short-ribs and giant grilled prawns, guests mingled in the purple twilight, each still marvelling at the sheer Swedish efficiency of the weather. But before the pavlova was even finished, Callum Mullin and Max Knott had climbed into the waiting Polestars to test out their precision sound systems — delivering an impromptu party DJ set which could probably be heard back in Gothenburg.