Rolls-Royce Built a Torture Track That Shakes Its Finished Cars Before Delivery
Eight torture surfaces, a roundabout simulator, and air jets mimicking autobahn speeds — the new Eric Platford Testway at Goodwood gives finished Rolls-Royces a final shakedown before delivery.
Rolls-Royce has opened a purpose-built shakedown track at its Goodwood plant in West Sussex, where engineers deliberately "excite" finished cars over eight rough-road surfaces to catch rattles, squeaks, and suspension flaws before the vehicles reach their owners. The facility, named the Eric Platford Testway after the company's first chief tester, was inaugurated on September 16.
The Testway consists of four parallel lanes, each 295 feet (90 meters) long. Every car makes two passes over each surface — one at a fixed speed and one sweeping through a speed range — so engineers can isolate the exact conditions that produce an unwanted noise or vibration.
The surface lineup reads like a catalog of the world's worst pavement:
- Small and large cobblestone sections to assess ride composure and flush out rattles
- "Random Concrete Waves" with expansion joints every 8 feet (2.4 meters)
- Angled "Twist Humps" that load the body torsionally through opposing axle movement
- Paired "Railway Tracks" hitting the front and rear axles in sequence
- Alternating iron covers to provoke an asymmetric response
- "Sine Wave" corrugations half an inch (12 mm) tall and 12 inches (300 mm) apart, tuned for high-frequency resonance
- Plain smooth tarmac as a reference
Turning areas at either end double as roundabout simulators, which Rolls-Royce says are especially useful for checking that loose personal items stay put in the cabin during a change of direction. Before entering the track, cars pass through an aero-acoustic chamber where movable high-pressure air jets probe for wind-noise intrusion at simulated speeds well above the UK's 70-mph national limit — including conditions comparable to unrestricted stretches of the German autobahn.
The facility was officially opened by the High Sheriff of West Sussex, Gary Shipton, at an event hosted by Gunther Boehner, the company's director of manufacturing.
The Testway is the latest piece of a broader buildout at Goodwood. In January 2025, Rolls-Royce announced an extension worth more than £300 million (about $370 million) — its largest single capital investment since the plant opened in 2003 — adding a new paint shop and extra space for Bespoke and Coachbuild commissions while preparing the site for electric-vehicle production. The new building is expected to be fully operational in 2029. The plant currently employs more than 2,500 people and builds up to 28 cars a day, each of them by hand.
The name is a deep cut from company history. Eric Platford joined Henry Royce in 1903 to test his first engines, learned to drive so he could road-test the chassis, and in 1908 became the first holder of the newly created chief tester title. Along the way, he co-drove the Silver Ghost on its record 15,000-mile nonstop reliability run.
After Rolls-Royce suffered a rare defeat in the 1912 Alpine Trial, Platford was dispatched to Austria to study the roads and sharpen the car for the 1913 running. That same year, the company credits his skill with helping Don Carlos de Salamanca, its representative in Spain, win the 1913 Spanish Grand Prix.
The new track doesn't replace real-world testing entirely: engineers will continue to validate a sample of cars on the long-standing eight-mile (13-km) route on public roads around Goodwood.
