The Brabham BT62 finally showed itself in public at the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed, and from the looks of it, the supercar looks to be as good as advertised. A sparkling red version of the track-focused BT62 took its turn driving around the Goodwood hill, and while it didn’t exactly burn the track with a scorching lap time, but it still left enough of an impression on the gathered crowd, effectively showing everyone that its return to the industry is going to turn a lot of heads. As far as first impressions go, it’s presence at the Goodwood Festival of Speed is already a resounding success for the company.

There’s an air of hope and optimism that Brabham’s going to be successful in its venture into production cars, even if the BT62 is only a track-version unit. Brabham made its name in the world of motor racing, not only as a constructor in Formula One, but as a family of successful racers that include three-time F1 World champion Jack Brabham and his sons, David and Geoff, both of whom have reached the pinnacle of endurance racing with victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. For a time in the 1960s, Brabham was also considered the world’s largest manufacturer of open-wheel racing cars, and it wasn’t until 1992 when the company closed its doors under the weight of financial collapse.

Fast forward to 2014, and Brabham reopened, albeit with a different purpose in life. The company’s goal now is to produce exotic production cars, beginning with the BT62. The track-only supercar comes with an aggressive design, highlighted by one of the biggest rear wings you can find in any non-racing car today. It also packs a 700-horsepower V-8 engine, weights just 972 kids (2,143 pounds), and has a 720-horsepower metric ton power-to-weight ratio. In other words, it’s a bona fide exotic with the history of Brabham attached to it. The red livery the car in attendance at the Goodwood Festival of Speed is wearing is also an homage to the BT46B car that was rolled out at the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix, a race that Brabham won.

Those who are pining to see a road-legal version of the BT62 should be excited, too, because Brabham has made it known that it’s creating a road-legal model that will feature a lot of the same workings as the BT62, albeit with a few modifications to make it legal to drive in public roads. That model is expected to arrive in the next few years. Separately, the automaker is also looking into building a 35-unit Celebration Series of the BT62 that will carry colors and paint schemes inspired by its former Formula One race cars. That’s on top of another 35-run Signature Series that will allow customers to dress up their BT62s. Regardless of the variant, the BT62 is priced at £1 million, or about $1.3 million based on current conversion rates.

Further reading

Read our full review on the 2018 Brabham BT62.

Read more Goodwood Festival of Speed.