The Goodwood Festival of Speed is the perfect excuse for some of the world's most amazing cars (and bikes) to gather for a few days on Lord March's driveway that acts as a hillclimb course. This year, the venue near Chichester in West Sussex will welcome a special delegation straight from Maranello as Ferrari will officially display for the very first time two of its Special Projects cars. On top of that, the Ferrari Monza SP2 part of the 'Icona' series of limited-run models made to as an ode to some of Ferrari's past legends.

Founded in 1993 by Lord March, who later became the 11th Duke of Richmond, the Goodwood Festival of Speed brought back the glamour of motor racing to Goodwood, a track that used to host popular Tourist Trophy races in the '50s and '60s. The road course itself is not used during the Festival of Speed that instead sees cars drive up and down Lord March's tight driveway. The track is used during the annual Goodwood Members' Meeting event and the Goodwood Revival. As is the case every year, the 2019 Goodwood FoS will see hundreds of classic cars - most of them racing cars although some supercars and other exotics are always part of the show - take to the course, many of them driven by their original drivers from back in the day. While Aston Martin will be this year's celebrated marque 60 years after its first and (so far) only Le Mans win, Ferrari plans to steal the show with a trifecta of cars that you probably won't see together again ever.

Cars like these spend their lives nestled in garages so seeing them out in the open is a rare opportunity

The Goodwood Festival of Speed, one of the world's most popular motorsport events is just around the corner. The event that will take place between July 7th and July 9th will again see some 150,000 fans drool at the world's finest, fastest, rarest, and most expensive rides. The two Special Projects cars have never been presented to the public before.

Of course, the most interesting of the three is the one that's the newest too, the P80/C, a Ferrari 488 GT3-based track weapon that harkens back to some of Ferrari's icons from the '60s. Commissioned by an unnamed "connoisseur of the Ferrari world, comes from a family of long-time Prancing Horse enthusiasts and admirers, and is himself a highly knowledgable, discerning Ferrari collector," the P80/C is inspired by both the Ferrari 330 P4 from 1967 and the Ferrari Dino 206S from 1966.

The P4 was Ferrari's most advanced weapon of the '60s created to fight Ford's mighty Mk. IV at Le Mans was powered by a high-revving (the red line was above 8,000 rpm) V-12 developing 420 horsepower that allowed it to surpass 190 mph down the Mulsanne Straight. The open-top P3/4 version led a Ferrari 1-2-3 victory at the Daytona 24 Hours in 1967 when the Ford effort crumbled with reliability woes and '66 Le Mans winner Chris Amon who drove the winning Ferrari alongside Lorenzo Bandini joked after the race that the P3/P4 made the Ford feel like a bus in comparison. While Ferrari lost at Le Mans that year to the Mk. IV driven by Foyt and Gurney, it did win on home ground at Monza as Ford elected to skip the race altogether. The Dino 206 S was a small sports car designed by Scuderia Ferrari for the 2.0-liter class that was employed by the team on tracks like the Nordschleife and the Targa Florio where the high output 330 P4 felt like an elephant in a china store.

The chassis, however, is a carbon fiber monocoque that's identical to that on any other Ferrari 488 GT3 race car that you can see in the IMSA Weathertech SportsCar Series or the Blancpain GT America series. The bespoke bodywork was developed over a very long time with the project kicking-off in earnest all the way back in 2015. "This highly intense gestation period was the result of in-depth styling research and lengthy engineering development, with meticulous analysis of performance parameters as well as scrupulous aerodynamic testing," said Ferrari in a statement when the car was formally announced.

Designed by Ferrari's own Centro Stile, the P80/C features a shark-like nose devoided of headlights, a giant splitter, huge intakes on the sides, and an almighty wing hanging over the ducktail in the back. The engine in the middle is the same as that of a 488 GT3, namely a twin-turbocharged, 3.9-liter V-8, and, without restrictors in place, it can put out 661 horsepower at 8,000 rpm and 561 pound-feet of torque at 3,000 rpm. The gearbox is a seven-speed dual-clutch unit with flappy paddles behind the steering wheel, and Ferrari says the P80/C will go from naught to 62 mph in 3.0 seconds en route to a top speed of 205 mph.

We wrote back in March that the owner can choose between a race-ready setup with a carbon fiber wing and 18-inch center-lock wheels and an “exhibition” setup with 21-inch wheels filling the curvaceous wheel arches. It's unclear how much the P80/C cost but, for reference, a turn-key Ferrari 488 GT3 costs $631,000.

Ferrari P80/C technical specifications

Moving on, Ferrari will also bring, as mentioned, the SP3JC an open-top version of the F12 TdF with a colorful livery. Commissioned by Talacrest founder John Collins, the SP3JC features a different front grille to that you see on any other F12 TdF as well as bigger air vents on the sides. The rear end is also different with four taillights, two on either side and a more rounded center panel above the rear bumper that features two narrow, horizontal openings. The whole back end's got a cleaner look than any other F12 TdF, but I'm not sure if, in this case at least, cleaner equals better.

Having said this, it's the livery that attracts people to the SP3JC (where JC stands for John Collins, naturally). It's an ode to classic Ferrari liveries, and you may recognize blue/yellow combo around the nose area as the 1956 Ferrari 290 MM driven by Argentine Juan-Manuel Fangio sported a similarly painted nose cone. The five-time Formula 1 World Driver's Champion drove chassis #0626 to fourth place overall in the 1956 Mille Miglia through torrential rain and without the help of a navigator.

It's also a very fast car as it's powered by the unchanged F12 TdF powerplant, the 6.3-liter V-12 that puts out 769 horsepower 519 pound-feet of torque. A standard F12 TdF is able to accelerate from 0 to 62 mph in 2.9 seconds, but the SP3JC should be a bit slower due to the lack of a fixed roof. In any case, it should still reach a top speed of over 200 mph (anywhere between 210 and 215).

Ferrari SP3JC Drivetrain Specifications

Finally, Ferrari will bring a second car with limitless headroom: the gorgeous Monza SP2 that was unveiled when Ferrari showed to the world the new premises of its Centro Stile, in Modena. As the name suggests, the Monza SP2 is also inspired by Ferrari's sports car racing cars from the '50s, particularly the 500 Monza and the 750 Monza. Instead, Ferrari fitted it with two “Virtual Windshields” that deflect air so that you won't get a mouthful of flies if you take your SP2 for a spin.

The SP2 is powered by the 6.5-liter naturally-aspirated V-12 of the 812 Superfast and, as such, it boasts all of its 810 horsepower. The SP2 can accelerate from a standstill to 124 mph in just 7.9 seconds, and it will keep going well past 185 mph despite being heavier than the SP1 at 3,351 pounds. The good news regarding the models that are part of the 'Icona' series is that Ferrari will build more than one of each (actually, Ferrari plans to build over 400 copies of every model, and there are more in the pipeline besides the SP1 and the SP2). The bad news is that these are multi-million-dollar cars so you probably won't get to see them too often. In other words, grab your Goodwood FoS tickets and go see all of these beauties (and everything else that will fill the paddock at Goodwood) for yourself!

Ferrari Monza SP2 Technical Specification

Further reading

Read our full review on the 2018 Ferrari SP3JC.

Read our full review on the 2019 Ferrari P80/C.

Read our full review on the 2018 Ferrari Monza SP2.

All of Ferrari's Special Projects Cars (that we know of)