The 60^th anniversary of the first Goodwood Nine Hour race will be marked by a special evening race at this year’s Goodwood Revival with sports cars of the time such as the Jaguar C-type, Aston Martin DB3S, Austin-Healey 100S and Ferrari 750 Monza.

The race will be over 90 minutes from 6.15 pm, so the latter half of the race will be run with headlights on in the twilight. A 1950s Jaguar or Aston Martin racing through the English countryside at dusk is about as evocative as cars can be. The atmosphere will be heightened by the fact that everyone at the Revival is in period dress from the 1950s and 1960s, and we mean everyone. The public, the emergency services, the officials and the competitors are all straight out of a period drama, with the effect complemented by its location in the timeless Sussex countryside.This year’s Revivial is from 14-16 September, with the 90 minute Freddie March Memorial Trophy taking place on the Friday evening. As well as the legends of sports-racing, there will be chance to see some of the more obscure racers of the time, such as the Cooper-Bristol, Cunningham C4R, Allard HWM and Gordini (the last of which was recently mortalised by Renault as a name for a pseudo hot-hatch Twingo).

The race is being sponsored by Credit Suisse, but the cost is probably only the equivalent of a day or two’s bonus for one of their executives.