Gentleman's Journal x Polestar at Goodwood | Gentleman's Journal

Gentleman's Journal x Polestar at Goodwood | Gentleman's Journal | The Gentleman's Journal

The aroma that greets you as you enter Goodwood Festival of Speed is as evocative as that of a teenage perfume or a freshly mown orchard – some cortex-spiking blend of petrol, hot metal, good rubber and shimmering tarmac. But where we’re going, we don’t need petrol, as the various members of Gentleman’s Journal’s recent jaunt down to the Goodwood Estate might have thought to themselves. This was a sojourn interested not so much in the long past of motoring but its longer, brighter future – and, at the centre of it all, right next to the winding track that buzzed with museum pieces and wonders and oddities from makers past, a group of Polestar models were very much the stars of the show. Of particular note were a Polestar Model 5, flitting across the tarmac and up the famous hill in its dazzle camouflage; and a Polestar roadster concept, slick and handsome with its frame slung low to the ground and its roof off.

Guests – including Eric Underwood, Cyrill Ibrahim, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Daisy Knatchbull, Ed Speleers and Harrison Osterfield – cooed over the smooth lines, futuristic lights, golden seatbelts and chunky grilles of the electric carmaker, before heading back to Bailiffscourt Hotel & Spa, on the sun-dappled south coast, for some roaring fun of a very different sort. Here, following a game or two of (highly) competitive croquet and a rousing speech from Polestar Head of Design Maximilian Missoni, the group tucked into vast red prawns and smoked beef brisket on a long, candle-lit table in the gardens – meanwhile, at the end of the lawn, looming benevolently over proceedings at all times, sat a sleek black Polestar 3: half-visible – but unignorable in the twilight.