Mille Miglia

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Lore & Background

The Mille Miglia was established by the young Counts Aymo Maggi and Franco Mazzotti, sports manager Renzo Castagneto, and motoring journalist Giovanni Canestrini, apparently in response to the Italian Grand Prix being moved from their home town of Brescia to Monza. The first race started on 26 March 1927, with 77 starters—all Italian—of which 51 reached the finishing post. The first Mille Miglia covered 1,618 km. The race was briefly stopped by Italian leader Benito Mussolini after an accident in 1938 killed a number of spectators. The race was not run in 1939; instead, 'Litoranea Libica 1939' from Tobruk to Tripoli took place in Libya. When the Mille Miglia resumed in April 1940, it was dubbed the 'Grand Prix of Brescia' and held on a short triangular course. After the war, three of the organizers (minus Franco Mazzotti, who had been killed in the war) revived the race in 1947.

In Their Own Story

In 1955, Stirling Moss and navigator Denis Jenkinson achieved the ultimate victory. Relying on 18-foot scroll pace notes read aloud via a coded system of 15 hand signals, they navigated the course in their Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. Car #722 left Brescia at 07:22, finishing after 10 hours, 7 minutes, and 48 seconds with an average speed of 157.650 km/h (97.96 mph). This set a record on the 1,597 km variant that stood for the remaining two years. Moss competed against Juan Manuel Fangio (#658), who started 24 minutes earlier but finished later due to engine problems at Pescara and fuel injection issues near Florence. Earlier in the race, teammate Hans Herrmann was forced to abandon his car after brake failure on the Futa Pass.

Reader's Guide

Unlike modern day rallying, where cars are released with larger professional-class cars going before slower cars, in the Mille Miglia the smaller, slower, lower displacement cars started first. From 1949, cars were assigned numbers according to their start time. For example, the 1955 Moss/Jenkinson car, #722, left Brescia at 07:22, while the first cars had started at 21:00 the previous day. In the early days of the race, even winners needed 16 hours or more, so most competitors had to start before midnight and arrive after dusk.

Did You Know?

• The first Mille Miglia in 1927 covered 1,618 km, corresponding to just over 1,005 American or British miles.
• The 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR driven by Stirling Moss and navigator Denis Jenkinson used pace notes on an 18-foot scroll of paper, read via 15 hand signals.
• Tazio Nuvolari won the 1930 Mille Miglia in an Alfa Romeo 6C by tailing his rival Achille Varzi with headlights off, then overtaking and flicking them on.
• The 1940 Mille Miglia saw the debut of the first Enzo Ferrari-owned marque AAC (Auto Avio Costruzioni) with the Tipo 815.
• The 1938 race saw eleven spectator fatalities, leading to the race being stopped by Mussolini.