Here's what a real-life Forza Horizon Festival looks like

Playing the Forza Horizon games is an almost entirely joyful experience, but there's always a slight twinge of sadness that no festival promoter in their right mind would chuck an automotive event quite so ludicrous. Just think of how many pints of lukewarm Tuborg you'd have to sell just to cover the insurance on a race between a Lamborghini Centenario and a fighter jet.

To celebrate the release of UK-based Forza Horizon 4, which we've reviewed here, publisher Microsoft recreated a slice of the game for real at Goodwood, home of that other automotive festival. On a sunny September day, we finally got a taste of what the Horizon Festival might be like if someone was only bonkers enough to bankroll the thing.

Naturally, with the promise of all this automotive hedonism friend of TG Ken Block was attracted to the event like a moth to the blinding flash of a thermonuclear explosion. Never one to do things by halves, Ken showed up in his 1,400hp twin-turbo Hoonicorn V2, the car that tyres tell their children about to scare them into behaving.

The result is this Ken Block X Britain video, which sees him tearing around the Goodwood Estate, making a terrible mess of the Duke of Richmond's front lawn, and at one point doing donuts around a Spitfire in a car that actually spits fire. Beautiful synchronicity.

The Forza Horizon series is famous for its showcase races, which pit cars against unusual opponents, such as freight trains, fighter planes and, on one bizarre occasion, hot air balloons. Honestly, it was closer than you might think.

The real-life Horizon Festival needed a similar series of showstoppers, and kicked off with a race up the Goodwood hillclimb between a McLaren Senna and a trio of motocross bikes. Naturally the Senna stuck to the asphalt, while the bikes took off as the crow flies. Or at the very least as the crow wheelies across a 17th century country estate.

One of the key new features of Forza Horizon 4 is the addition of four distinct seasons. Summer is all blue skies and rolling green hills, whereas winter is about slithering around in three feet of snow. With that in mind, this real-life Horizon Festival gave the famous Goodwood rally course a makeover and created a route that transitioned through all four seasons in a matter of about a minute and a half. That's why this sunny early Autumn day in Sussex looks more like an unpronounceable Swedish rally stage in the middle of winter...

Within moments, though, it had transformed, via spring, into a bright summer's day with flowers, deck chairs and frisbee playing picnickers. All the fun of summer, none of the being menaced by wasps. The four seasons rally stage is a nod to the introductory sequence of the game itself, where you'll experience a similarly disorientating experience as Horizon 4 crams in a full 12 months' worth of weather into around 10 minutes of racing.

Talking of references to the game, one of the most spectacular moments you'll experience if you pick up Forza Horizon 4 is racing a Trophy Truck against a huge hovercraft. At Goodwood, we were offered up a miniaturised version, with a Ford Raptor truck going up against what appeared to us to be a drunk air mattress with a wind machine attached to it. Still, if you've ever wanted to arrive at your destination with a free mouthful of grass, there really is no finer way to travel.

Arriving alongside Forza Horizon 4 is the Best of Bond downloadable car pack, containing ten cars for which the 'full service history' would be a list of ladies James has entertained in the back seat. Present at Goodwood were the DB5 as seen in Goldfinger and Goldeneye and the DB10 from Spectre, both of which can be driven in the game. Humming the James Bond theme music to yourself while you do is entirely optional.

Some, including the DB5, even come complete with functioning gadgetry in the game, such as the iconic rotating number plates. Something that might come in useful on that stretch of variable speed limit 'smart' motorway that's somehow snuck its way into Horizon 4's otherwise perfect virtual road trip. And yes, it's constantly displaying a 60mph limit, regardless of congestion. Of course it is.

If you're going to show up at the Horizon Festival, you can't just roll to a halt in a battered 2007 Nissan Micra, you're supposed to arrive doing a handbrake turn, with all four wheels locked, in something that costs more than the average person's house.

That's why the organisers arranged for a fleet of McLaren 720S taxis to ferry people around the estate and the glorious driving roads that surround it. Alright, it's not quite the game's McLaren Senna cover star, but Macca's fabulously capable supercar is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect to be in VIP parking next to the main stage. Possibly with a beauty vlogger taking peace-sign selfies next to it.

Of course, arriving by road isn't the only option. The Horizon series has always been perfectly happy for you to take a sharp left in the middle of a straight road and careen into the countryside. Inspired by the Land Rover Defender crashing through a dry stone wall on the cover of the game box, there was a phalanx of original, 1960s Landies for getting around the more agricultural corners of the Goodwood estate.

Driving impressions? Well, the brakes appear to function on a drive-by-carrier-pigeon system, the steering doesn't self-centre and finding a gear is like fishing around in Mary Poppins' bag. Brilliant, basically.