This week sees the start of a new section on the blog called “Classic races”, where at more or less regular intervals, the idea is to tell the story of some of the most famous and legendary classic car races of the last century. As is often the case the idea came out of nowhere, or at least not following any logical path. More precisely, last week when walking down the street, I saw a grown man in a business suite on a non-powered, two-wheel scooter, kicking himself forward on the sidewalk and wearing – a helmet. It struck me how in spite of fatalities from most activities being lower and longevity obviously higher than at any time in history, in the perception of some people, the world has become incredibly dangerous. Somehow that made me think of cars (never far away…) and especially classic cars, and thereby of a time when the drivers indeed risked their lives for the sport and cars they loved. In other words, classic car races!

I’m sure you could have a lengthy argument of what race you should start such a section with and I certainly don’t intend for this section to follow any kind of order of importance, but somehow you need to start with one of the most well-known ones, which at least from a European perspective is no doubt the famous thousand miles through the northern half of Italy, more well-known as the Mille Miglia (hereinafter also MM)! Given the 2022 race took place in the second half of June this may ring more than one bell, but today’s race is not the same as the original one, so let’s take things in good order.

It was back in the 1920’s when, as part of the strong rivalry between the two northern Italian cities Milan and Brescia, the Brescians weren’t happy to see the completion of the Monza race track close to Milan in 1925. Some resourceful merchants from Brescia got their heads together and thought up a race that would be driven on (unprepared and unpaved) roads rather than on track, but be of the same length as a Grand Prix at the time, namely 1000 miles (1600 km). Why on earth would Italians think in miles you may think, but actually the old Romans used miles as measure, so it’s indeed a measure which at least historically has been used in Italy as well. The race would start in Brescia, lead to the eternal city of Rome before ending back in Brescia, along a route as figured out by two of the more enthusiastic merchants, Aymo Maggi and Franco Mazzotti.

Two years later in 1927, a total of 77 cars took part in the first Mille Miglia. Ferdinando Minoia and Giuseppe Morandi needed a bit more than 21 hours to win the first race in their OM 665, thereby managing an average speed of 77 km/h. Not bad for the 1920’s, but it didn’t take more than three years for a certain Tazio Nuvolari from Mantua, also known as “The Flying Mantuan”, to increase that to over 100 km/h. The Mille Miglia was however not reserved for sports cars with both smaller cars such as the Renault 4CV and family cars taking part as well. In a logic that would arguably not be applied today, the slower cars started ahead of the faster ones such as to reduce the time officials had to spend along the route. This was certainly one, but not the only cause of accidents, of which a serious one in 1938 led to the original route being changed to a shorter 165 km route driven several laps in 1940 (no race took place in 1939). After the war however, the MM went back to the original route – having seen the horrors of war during five years, the general view was that in comparison, the original route was child’s play!

When the MM resumed after the war it remained, as in previous years, very much an Italian story. In most years both the winning cars and their drivers were Italian. In the years before the war it was Alfa Romeo that was most successful with the 6C and 8C, after the war Ferrari had most success with various models. Among drivers, Tazio Nuvolari is perhaps the most legendary, and in some years the route was even changed in his honour so that it went through his home town of Mantua. This is not to say that foreigners didn’t have some success as well; Juan Manuel Fangio participated in the race but never won, and the most well-known foreigner is no doubt Stirling Moss who won in 1955 in the Mercedes 300 SLR. That was only two years before the last Mille Miglia race in 1957 when a tragic accident killed not only the driver and his co-pilot but also 10 spectactors of which five were children. This meant the end for the original Mille Miglia race.

As a largely pre-WW2 car race, there’s obviously a number of stories to be told from the young age of automotive sport. One of the best ones is certainly from 1954, when German driver Hans Herrmann participated in a Porsche 550 together with co-driver Herbert Linge and decided to save some time at the sight of a rail crossing – and an approaching train. Given the 550 was quite low, Herrmann accelerated and both Linge and him sunk down in the seats such as to be able to pass under the barrier… Stirling Moss’s victory in 1955 is also a story in itself since he managed to set an all-time speed record, averaging close to 160 km/h. Given the non-paved, dwindling roads of the race with hundreds of spectators alongside them, that remains difficult to understand to this day. His co-driver during the race was the journalist Denis Jenkinson who later in the magazine Motorsport told the story of what was in his words a terrifying experience. If you’re curious, you’ll find it here!

In 1977 The Mille Miglia was revived as a tourist race with the current, annual format being in place since 1987. The race is today open to cars that either participated in the original race, or are of the same type. Either or, needless to say that these are worth quite a lot of money these days and the race has thereby become a wonderful exhibition of automobiles from a bygone era. The initial technical inspection in Brescia on the eve of the race is something not to be missed if you happen to be in northern Italy around this time of year! Every year around 400 cars take parto out of around 1500 applicants, and the route still leads from Brescia to Rome but varies a bit from year to year. As a tourist rally it’s no longer about outright speed but more about typical classical car race moments such as regularity and navigation. The risk of accidents and need for helmets has thereby diminished heavily, and it’s also highly improbable that any driver chooses to cross a railway under the barrier!