As usual with the Goodwood Revival, it's difficult to know where to start, story wise. There is simply so much on show that three days is simply not enough to cope with the event. Even getting out of the car parks can take hours – and that's just when you arrive, as even there you can be overwhelmed by the automotive beauty. How can so many period classics still exist? Where are they for the other 362 days of the year? Wherever they are, I want to go there.

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As I unloaded my gear from the car on Friday morning, already the years were slipping away, the decades receding. Modernity slips comfortably into the distance, tucked up in your car, to be sadly rediscovered at the end of the day as you sit in queues moving slowly to take you back to the real world. Dressing in period is implicit in covering the event – getting trackside or into the main paddock frankly not on without tie knotted and jacket in place or unfeasibly an complex hair-do, twin-set and pearls.

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So clothed with an appropriate sartorial nod to nostalgia and my normal lens-carrying belt-pack replaced by a 1950s army haversack (this isn't me, by the way, though I wish I had arrived so lightly equipped), I began my own reverse Great Escape: making it the mere 100 yards from my car to the entrance within half an hour. I failed, of course. Even as I was trying to remember how exactly you knotted a tie, the low, beautiful sound of a cool half-dozen Spitfires kept interrupting my efforts of forward motion.

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The fighters, split into a pair of V formations, were putting in frighteningly low runs over the circuit before rising and arcing through the skies, their V12 Merlin engines straining with the effort and pilots obviously having the time of their lives. How cool must it be to say that you're a Spitfire pilot? It's just showing off. 

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The problem was that dragging your eyes away from the sky to try and make progress towards the turnstiles meant in turn being distracted by the cars around you. Roped-off areas of the car parks towards the event perimeter are reserved for classics only, with pre-1966 examples allowed closest to the entrances to further help evoke the bespoke spirit of the event as you approach.

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That spirit is what makes the event: there's a joy and camaraderie in everyone who attends, whether they're wearing tweed or Super Dry, driving a Bentley or a Hyundai. Perhaps surprisingly, elite and exclusive this isn't: everyone gets to play.

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As I was drinking in my first taste of the Revival, I got chatting to owners of this Lamborghini Espada: even as they were unpacking their picnic from the glass-lined boot of the Espada to make their own way in, they were still more than happy to open up the bonnet to show off the glorious 3.9-litre V12. And extend the offer a glass of wine if I joined them at the end of the day! 

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The number of E-Types attending was, of course, enormous: every road and racing model seemed to be represented over the weekend, and the car parks were packed with gleaming examples of coupés and drop-tops.

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And this was only one of the reserved forward car parks in which I'd managed to find a space on the Friday – the next day in the main car park at least an hour was lost to happy wandering down the lines of Jaguars, Ferraris, Maseratis, Morgans, Alfas… 

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I met up with fellow-Speedhunter Paddy for a coffee around lunchtime at the Spitfire café, once I'd actually made it through the gate; somehow we bumped into each other amongst the throng of the main paddocks. He was spending a day down on the south coast before heading to London for the JDM AllStars event at Wembley. Could there be a more diametrically opposed pair of meetings?! I'm looking forward to hearing his thoughts from the day. This might be an unashamed celebration of a very British event, but it's a truly international meeting of like-minded people. The world likes cars, and the world loves Goodwood.

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In keeping with tradition, cardboard armbands denote the role assigned to people working at the track, whether Mechanics, Photographer, Team or the prestigious GRRC – the Goodwood Road Racing Club. 

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Inside the track, between the paddock tents you find gorgeous (and often rare and/or priceless) cars squeezed into every available space. It's a couple of square miles of automotive nirvana.

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For instance, on track a pair of GT40 'safety cars' hightail round after the Aston Martin DB5 course car between races to clear the track.

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Happily for me, the Revival also means an overload of Alfa Romeos, as with a century of racing history behind them the marque is inextricably linked with the track. Sportcars, saloons and F1 Alfas would all be well represented over the weekend.

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A heavy police presence was required to combat potential wrong 'uns – particularly in light of the number of leather-clad bikers at the track. The K9 unit, stationed next to the fearsomely quick Morris police van, maintained a strong, silent and strangely still presence over the whole weekend…

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The few permanent buildings on the site rotate in their occupancy from year to year. The March Motor Works houses re-enactments of period garages, and this year Porsche, Jeep, Rolls Royce, Mini and BMW took up shop, all complete with cars from the era and personnel to match. 

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The Porsche 356 1600 Super and 911S represented Porsche's first two decades and the birth of the 911 legend.

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Inside the Porsche garage, in one bay a 911 was being stripped back to its component parts and rebuilt by Porsche technicians. 

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Next door a 550 Spyder was undergoing similar TLC, live for your oily entertainment.

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Of course, tyre technology has been as important a factor as anything in the quest to find speed, and Michelin had two vintage vans on show outside the garages.

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One thing that has been lost from racing, thankfully, has been smoking next to highly flammable racing fuel. I have a picture on my wall of Lancia-Ferrari driver Alfonso De Portago nonchalantly smoking whilst a mechanic checks the fuel level in his F1 car. The third-place driver of the 1965 #11 Hamill-Chevrolet SR3 in the big-banger sportscars of the Whitsun Trophy at the Revival at least kept his cigar unlit on the drive to Parc Fermé…

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But one thing that Goodwood has brought back is a better appreciation of the on-track efforts of the racers: the end of each race is greeted with appreciative clapping, and the three podium drivers always get to do a lap of honour to soak up the applause. Much better than modern racers, where stuffing in as many races as possible has dispensed with these kind of niceties. 

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Alongside the four wheels of cars and three of the planes, bikes were also well represented at Goodwood, celebrating the motorcycle races at the track and the café racer biker culture of the post-war period. Leather-clad rockers with iconic British mounts such as Matchless, BSA and Triumph (don't forget how dominant the British bike industry was until its collapse – along with car manufacturing – in the '70s) stalked round, but their beaming smiles rather took away from any attempt at recreating the youth-gone-wild aggression of the time.

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But the majority of wanna-be glances were directed at the riders cruising round on the low-slung, big-saddled American machines, Harleys and Indians, all emulating the classic look of the Steve McQueen-style with one-hand on the throttle, flat cap on and the big lazy motors thump-thumping beneath them. Effortless cool. 

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This year the motocross boys also got in on the action: almost 60 machines from the '50s and '60s put in demonstration laps around the track – and by around, I mean it in every sense of the word. As soon as they crossed the start-line the pack spread out, heading for the grass and run-offs to make the demo that bit more authentic, before heading back to their own muddy enclave up by the Lavant corner. Tarmac is for those not trying hard enough.

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The Standing Orders next to the make-ready area for the Spitfires included an important missive: Look To The Skies. Goodwood's origin as a World War II fighter-base is an important part of the Revival, and despite a number of Royal Air Force personnel having hair that seemed a little but too long for regulation length, the popularity of the aeroplanes was as high as ever – especially with the almost incomprehensible number of Spitfires on display. 

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The biggest – in every sense – draw of the static displays on the Spirit Of Aviation lawn was the Sally B – the last air-worthy B-17 Flying Fortress in Europe. The gun-laden and saucily-decorated old girl dwarfed the surrounding concourse d'elegance for examples of some of the world's most coveted early aeroplanes. 

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But there was one event that brought a silence to the whole event: the growls of the Whitsun Trophy Can-Ams had faded, and all eyes reverted to the aforementioned skies. First their were pointing fingers, then the low hum orientated everyone round to the same direction as a brace of Spitfires escorted in one of only two remaining air-worthy Lancaster bombers (out of almost 8,000 originally built). It's a breath-taking sight. 

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After two passes the pair of escorts peeled off, leaving the venerable Lanc' to pound its way back to its distant home-base in the north of England.

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Military escorts of a similar age could be found on the ground as well, with the ever-popular Home Guard volunteer re-enacters pounding the ground in a usually out-of-step Dad's Army fashion.

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Cars are obviously the stars here – and we will, I promise, provide more coverage of the four-wheel variety next up! – but there are also a whole plethora of period recreations to enjoy, like this Tesco store. Inside, shelves were kept stocked by beige-coated assistants (the pink-and-white-checked till girls were something else…) with British '70s favourites either now not sold or just out of fashion (Daz! Double Diamond lager! Opal Fruits!) all in authentic packaging. Although mostly just for display, there was quite a bit you could buy, where products had been repackaged in their original, typographically-dated wrappers, like chocolate bars and, you've got to love it, Marmite. 

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Tesco was accompanied by a Delonghi coffee shop and Kenwood home appliance store, the latter showing hourly demos of revolting-sounding period recipes. Just down from this area is the large marketplace. Need a deer-stalker? A fur stole? The poster from the 1936 Barcelona Grand Prix? The rear-light glass from a 1952 Ford Zephyr? Or perhaps a cardboard cut-out of Fangio? Yes? Then this is the place.

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Even the coffee shops seem appropriate. You arrive at Goodwood, and you need never leave…

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It's enough to leave your mind in a whirl. You have to come back for a second day just to see if it was all real. You start craving analogue TVs with only two buttons (on and off), itchy woollen clothing and, of course, stupidly quick cars with too much horse-power and no grip that were hand-built in nondescript workshops in the backwaters of England, the US or Italy.

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As you sit in the queue next to an Aston Martin or a Morgan or a Jaguar it's easy to think that maybe, just maybe, life would be so much better if every day was the Goodwood Revival…

Jonathan Moore

Goodwood Revival