The Goodwood Members' Meeting, where The Duke of Richmond meets Dave from Richmond

All boys like cars, right? We assume and expect a little boy to like cars from a tiny age. Perhaps it’s a gender thing — blue for a boy, pink for a girl and never the twain shall meet etc. It goes without saying this is an outdated idea, but I’m a man with a little boy and he does, unsurprisingly to some, love cars. I put it down to a simple evolution of interest; he loved playing with a little ball as a baby, balls are round, balls roll, what else rolls? Wheels. What has lots of wheels? Cars. The question I find myself asking is whether that love of cars will graduate from Hot Wheels and Matchbox up to the real thing — will my son become a ‘petrolhead’?

As the current generation’s first cars are invariably brand-new hatchbacks with Apple CarPlay, power steering, electric everything and a 100-year warranty, the days of tinkering with a ‘bit of a banger’ seem to be a thing of the past. I’m not sure the last time I saw a 1990’s Fiesta on the road. Now I’m no wrench monkey myself — I can check the oil, change a tire and refill a radiator — but to a 20-year-old in 2026, I might as well be Gordon Murray. My first car was a second-hand Peugeot 106 with a cheeky little 1.2-litre engine, just the four gears and a driver’s door only I had the knack to open. Oh, and it would spontaneously cut out for a reason that was never fully explained. It was great.

Thankfully there’s still a world out there of grey-haired men in sheds restoring and maintaining old MGs, Series 1 Defenders or their father’s Austin. But what happens when they are no longer with us? Can the CarPlay generation learn to play with cars?

To answer this question, I decided to take three generations of my family to a place that I believe had the best chance of enticing the youngest into the automotive world: The Goodwood Members' Meeting. The generational bridge would hopefully connect the dots in a family of car lovers — my brother and I spent our childhoods ogling supercars with our father at the Motor Show and my son and his cousins have had the benefit of my journalism career introducing them to many a Ferrari, Lamborghini or McLaren.

The Members' Meeting is, as it sounds, reserved for Goodwood Members, it’s an event that started small in 1949 and relaunched as the modern iteration in 2014. What’s important about this event, and why I think it may be useful to experience, is that it favours classic cars. You won’t see the latest Ferrari 296 GTS or a Lamborghini Huracan. I’m not sure you’ll see much past the 1980s and the vast majority tearing themselves around the course are 1930s/40s/50s racers.

And the racers go racing. This isn’t Salon Privé, where the cars are polished so much you can study your retina in a wheel arch — this is an open paddock culture where anyone can walk up and touch a 100-year-old award winner, talk to the owner and watch it head out for a few laps. It's noisy, it's hectic and it's palpably exciting. What that means is that cars, their drivers and their capabilities aren’t put on a pedestal or made to feel otherworldly. That’s important, as it’s too easy for them to feel out of reach and only for the rich and famous. Hopefully the rustic, informal presentation of them and their owners will make the world feel more accessible to newcomers.

When we arrived, we barely made it out of the car park; the culture is that if you have an interesting car, you drive it to the event. And if it's pre-1960, you get to park closer to the entrance. The cars get progressively more interesting as you head towards the entrance — a walk broken up with shouts of ‘oh a Ferrari! Oh, another one! Dad is that a Lotus? What’s this blue one? Papa, isn’t that an Alfa Romeo?’. I had to remind the youngsters that we hadn’t actually entered the event yet — it’s a great aperitif for what’s to come.

And what’s to come is an atmosphere of enthusiasm and openness, a place that doesn’t have a VIP section or corporate hospitality — whether you are The Duke of Richmond or Dave from Richmond, you can wander around looking at cars, talking to like-minded people without judgement or questions about your status. Plenty of the classic-car enthusiasts dress up in their finest tweed and chinos, which gives the event a classy country feel, but it's not a fashion show.

As the very loud and very tangible Goodwood Racetrack is full bloodedly placed at the centre of the event you are never far from the action or the soundtrack. In fact, that noise underscores the whole place, whether you are getting coffees from an old army truck or burgers from The Forge.

There is also a playfulness to the organisation; when you get your ticket, you are assigned a ‘house’ (or team essentially), which harks back to school. Each car racing through the weekend wears the badge of various houses and you can track the progress of your house on various scoreboards and online. It’s such a wonderfully silly idea that (thankfully for my narrative question) speaks to a youthfulness within the event — a scholastic rivalry manifesting in V8s, V12s and the odd V16.

To complete this prep school make-believe there is a huge dining hall with team emblems and flags, long canteen tables and hearty food that evokes Hogwarts as much as Eton. This of course is wonderfully playful for us grownups, but saliently recognisable for the kids — it was this room that made the kids think that all this noise and machinery could also be for them.

After we filled up on burgers from The Forge and beers for the dads, we got stuck into the noise. And what a thing. The £20 I spent on Amazon buying cute little ear defenders for my son is probably the most important money I’ve ever spent, this side of buying our house. There’s no way he would have stood avidly watching DB5s and E-Types ragging it past the pit lane without them. He was mesmerised by the spectacle. And as he is so small he could thread his way through any crowd and still get a great view — luckily the event is well judged in terms of capacity, so it never feels like you’re restricted at all.

Naturally with children there comes a time when you can tell they’ve had enough — classically ours came directly after they had all got themselves an ice cream. With faces plastered with a 99, we started to find our way back to the car.

Although exhausted by the day, they still had time to swing into a very well stocked toy shop and given the location it was of course only selling cars. Hotwheels, Matchbox and everything in between. My son went for a large, rather tatty NASCAR racer which may have been driven by his love of Lightning McQueen. His cousins favoured a more conventional pair of Ferrari 296s. (My brother and I may or may not have picked ourselves Porsche and Range Rover Dakar specials respectively …parents can have fun too). After the financial blood-letting had ended, we exited the event to ease our way back through a sea of great cars as we all digested the day.

I think if I was to distil the wide-eyed, joy-filled look on the face of a 4-year-old, 7-year-old and 9-year-old (not to mention the 41, 43, 76 year olds) it would be liquid passion. The tangible thrill was there, as was the vastness of it all — cars are large, noisy, smelly and colourful, an assault on the senses. But I think the more that kids are engaged on all sensory levels the better — it’s too easy for it all to be through a screen, no offence to Mr McQueen. Sometimes it’s best to get out there and see it for real. Feel it for real.

I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure these kids will be back. And as for the big kids? Well, we’ll keep opening their eyes to the exciting things out there in the world. Some of which have 4 wheels and a V8.

With thanks to: Goodwood. The next Members' Meeting will take place on April 10-11.