What is the St. Mary’s Trophy?

This contest — named after the nearby St. Mary’s Church in Lavant — is for production-based saloon cars from 1960-1966. The racing here is clean and close, and those chrome-trimmed classics that once filled the streets are driven at unlikely speeds by a rollcall of world-famous drivers from multiple disciplines. Year in, year out, it provides an unmissable spectacle.

Goodwood’s first St. Mary’s Trophy was held in 1959, when it was run at the Motor Circuit simultaneously with a GT race. Only in 1961 did it become a standalone event, that year dominated by Jaguars driven by the likes of Graham Hill, Bruce McLaren and Roy Salvadori. Minis and Lotus Cortinas were the stars of their respective classes, while the arrival of the Ford Galaxie shook things up for the Jags in 1964.

The final St. Mary’s Trophy in period was held in 1966, won by a Ford Mustang, and the Revival era St. Mary’s Trophy often falls into a like David vs. Goliath battle of big-capacity American V8s and smaller European classics. This saloon car race first ran in 2006 and has been an annual fixture since 2009.

Across those two decades, we’ve seen everything from Austin A35s to Ford Thunderbirds flat around the curves of the Goodwood Motor Circuit. Such is the variety of machinery that there are no stand-out crowd favourites, it’s likely that there are people championing every car.

More than the cars, though, is the incredible line-up of drivers who come to Goodwood every year to battle it out in what is in essence an unlikely cohort of racing drivers.

The race is split over two parts, with one race for the car owners and a second for the professional drivers. Naturally, a host of saloon car racers attend; BTCC is represented in droves, with Champions Jake Hill, Gordon Shedden and Jake Hill being regulars. Stars of the Super Touring era like Steve Soper and Anthony Reid also hustle yesteryear’s saloons in the St. Mary’s Trophy.

We’ve also seen Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button in action, while former F1 and Le Mans racer Emanuele Pirro has many St. Mary’s Trophy entries to his name. Speaking of Le Mans, we must mention nine-time winner and crowd-pleaser Tom Kristensen, as well as Darren Turner and Andre Lotterer. Last year, we also welcomed IndyCar winner Tony Kanaan to the saloon car field. With such a line-up of talent, it’s little wonder the St. Mary’s Trophy so consistently provides a great display of racing.

The winners are decided by the two parts combined, so the result is always difficult to predict. That just adds to the joy of watching these decades-old saloons battling flat out with just inches to spare between them. This is thunderous saloon car racing at its finest.

Tickets for the 2026 Goodwood Revival are now on sale. If you’re not already part of the GRRC, you can sign up to the Fellowship today and save ten per cent on your 2026 tickets and grandstand passes, as well as enjoying a whole host of other on-event perks.  

Photography by Michal Pospisil, Toby Whales and Steven Stringer.