Driving the Mille Miglia

What is the Mille Miglia, and why might one dream of participating in it?

The Mille Miglia is many things, but most famously it is—or rather was—one of the five most legendary races in the history of motor sport, the others being Indianapolis, Monaco, Le Mans, and the Targa Florio. The original Mille Miglia ran from 1927 to 1957 (with war-related interruptions in 1939 and 1941-46). It was a one-thousand mile race (hence the name) run over open roads, from Brescia, in northern Italy, to Rome and back (except in 1940, when the course remained in northern Italy). There were several classes of competing cars, which made it possible for every kind of car, from more ordinary production models to top-of-the line out-and-out race cars, to participate. Leading Italian brands, especially Alfa Romeo and Ferrari, enjoyed great success, often with models prepared specifically for the Mille Miglia (hence the MM suffix to such models as the Alfa 8C 2900 B Spider MM and Ferrari’s 166MM Barchetta, 290MM Spider, and 340MM Spider), but so too did foreign manufacturers like Mercedes, with one overall win in 1931 and an even more storied one in 1955, and Porsche, with several class wins. Many famous race drivers also competed and won, such as Giuseppe Campari, Rudolf Caracciola, Achille Varzi, Clemente Biondetti, and Alberto Ascari, though the two drivers’ names most famously associated with the Mille Miglia are two-time winner Tazio Nuvolari and Stirling Moss.

1957 was the last year of the actual race. Too many deaths, not just drivers’ but spectators’, including children’s, brought an end to the great show.

Show was indeed the word, as the Mille Miglia was an event across Italy. People would turn out to crowd the route and watch and cheer the racers as they passed by. Anyone who has seen Federico Fellini’s semi-autobiographical childhood-remembrance film, Amarcord, will recall the sequence where race cars bomb through the streets of the village where the film is set. But those very same crowds led to the race’s demise; it was impossible to continue to maintain open roads, a complete absence of safety precautions, and car speeds often well into triple digits. Before World War II, the winning cars were able to complete the race in about sixteen hours, with an average speed of around 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph). By 1955, though, the winner’s average speed attained almost 100 miles—not kilometers—per hour; that’s average speed, not top speed.