New cars you can see at the 2024 Festival of Speed

BMW M4 CS

BMW has gone all in with its presence at the 2024 Festival of Speed, and will bring two very different cars to showcase in First Glance. First up is the new M4 CS which will be making its UK debut when it takes to the Goodwood Hill for the first time on Thursday, 11^th July.

The fastest, lightest, and most extreme version of the current BMW M4, the CS develops 550PS (405kW) and 650Nm (479lb ft) of torque from its straight-six engine, with all that power being sent through a four-wheel-drive system for superior grip and traction.

The results are bound to be impressive. A sprint from 0-62mph takes 3.4 seconds on the way to a 188mph top speed, numbers that are aided further by a stringent weight-saving exercise – the M4 CS is 20kg lighter than the M4 Competition. This car is going to look fantastic out on the Hill.

BMW XM Label Red

BMW’s other entrant into First Glance is quite the contrast. It’s the most powerful M car ever made, and you certainly won’t miss it out on the Hill. This is the strikingly designed BMW XM Label Red, a 750PS (552kW) performance SUV powered by a 4.4-litre twin-turbocharged V8 coupled to an electric motor.

We’ll let you make your own mind up on the looks of this thing, but there is no denying the performance. It takes only 3.8 seconds to smash through the 0-62mph barrier, which must feel quite alarming from behind the wheel of a 2.5-tonne monster.

We’d warn you not to miss it, but we’re not sure that’ll be possible when the XM storms its way up the Hill at the Festival of Speed.

BYD Seal U DM-i

BYD is well on its way to becoming a household name in the UK, its early successes in Europe have already been highly publicised, and its latest introduction to the market is set to make its debut in First Glance. It’s the Seal U DM-i, a svelte SUV with a proposed 671-mile range.

It takes on several details you may recognise from the Seal saloon, including the rotating infotainment display, but while the saloon is a fully electric car, the Seal U DM-i is a plug-in hybrid with an 18.3kWh battery supplemented by a 1.5-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine.

If this is going to be your first time in close contact with a BYD, we suggest you take a good look, because this brand is about to make waves in the UK market.

Defender Octa

JLR has been busy getting this new car ready for a while. We’ve known about its existence for several months now, and finally we can confirm that the Defender Octa will be making its global dynamic debut at the 2024 Festival of Speed.

It’s the Defender as you’ve never seen it before, with a twin-turbocharged V8 engine that JLR promises will make it the fastest Defender ever made. Details about the car itself are still pretty thin on the ground; we await its full reveal ahead of its Goodwood debut on 3^rd July, but until then, we’ll sit tight and look forward to seeing it unleashed upon the Hill as part of First Glance.

Yangwang U8

This is a car we can’t help but be intrigued by. It’s a large-scale SUV powered by a quad-motor electric powertrain with a 2.0-litre inline-four-cylinder range extender. Needless to say, it packs quite the punch, producing 1,196PS (88kW) through its four motors, one on each wheel, powered by a 49kWh battery.

It looks big, and it is genuinely enormous, standing at 5.3 metres long and more than two metres wide, it weighs a whopping 3,460kg. All that weight does have an impact on electric range, which is limited to 112 miles, but the addition of the petrol engine boosts that to around 620 miles.

Aside from the eye-opening numbers, the U8 has a very impressive party trick. It can perform a tank turn (a full 360-degree pirouette on the spot) using its state-of-the-art e4 platform that allows the left and right wheels to rotate in opposite directions. You should definitely check this car out in First Glance, it’ll be in action on the Hill, too, throughout the weekend.

We'll update this list with new announcements as they happen in the build up to the 2024 Festival of Speed. Stay tuned to find out which exciting new cars you'll be able to see in First Glance.

The 2024 Festival of Speed takes place on 11^th-14^th July. Only Thursday general admission tickets remain, with Friday, Saturday, and Sunday tickets now sold out, although a limited number of hospitality packages for all days are still available. Tickets and packages can be purchased from £70.