The Mille Miglia Ferraris

The Postwar Mille Miglia was run for 11 years, from 1947 to 1957.  Ferrari won it eight times, with a wide variety of models.  The other winners were Alfa Romeo (1947), Lancia (1954), and Mercedes-Benz (1955).

1948: Clement Biondetti's 166 S (2-liter) Barchetta.  The first 12-cylinder Ferrari, and the first one built in quantities you needed more than one hand to count.  It was a good year for Enzo, and the beginning of the Ferrari mystique: Luigi Chinetti won LeMans for him too.  Biondetti had won the first postwar Mille, the year before, in an Alfa 8C2900.

1949: Clement Biondetti's 166 MM Barchetta: the same car, now called a Mille Miglia in honor of the previous year's win.  A car's racing number was its driver's starting time, in this case, 7:33 a.m.  This made it easiers for spectators to tell who was ahead as the field passed them by.  The fastest Mille took 10 hours, won by Stirling Moss in a Mercedes 300SLR in 1955 with Dennis Jenkinson co-driving,  giving Moss route notes from a rolling scroll.  Most Milles took 11+ hours for the "big dog" cars to complete.

1950: Giannino Marzotto's 195 S, coupe version of the 166, bored out to 2.3 liters.  Not to detract from the achievement of Ferrari and his drivers, but the Mille was a "specialist" race.  Even though foreign teams spent as long as two weeks in Italy practicing, it was impossible to learn a 1000 mile course.  Most drivers approached it as a rally, with a co-driver giving hand signals from route notes.  A co-driver was not required, however, and several Ferrari pilotes (and many others) drove the Mille solo.

1951: Luigi Villoresi's 340 America (4.1 liter), first of the big bore Ferraris to run the Mille.  Some of the body damage is from an accident that, not-so-incidentally, killed two spectators.  This picture was taken at a Control, where competitors got their Route Cards time-stamped by race officials.  The Controls were at locations to make it hard for competitors to cheat by taking short-cuts.

1952: Giovanni Bracco's 250 S.  This was the same small-block V-12 bored out to 3 liters.

Bracco's 250 S, restored, in the Ferrari Museum today.

1953: Giannino Marzatto's 340 MM (4.1 liter) , about to be flagged off from the starting ramp.

1956: Eugenio Castellotti's 290 MM (3.5 liter).  This was the "rain Mille."  Although it often rained during the race, it rarely rained hard or for long periods of time.  1956 was the exception: wet almost from beginning to end.  Castellotti is driving without goggles in this picture and seems to be casting his eyes heavenward, asking "how long, Oh Lord, how long?" 

A better picture of Castellotti's 1956 winner, taken when the road was merely damp.

1957: Piero Taruffi crosses the finish line ahead of Wolfgang Von Trips's identical 315 S (3.8 liter).  Alfonso DePortago's accident in a similar 335 S, which killed 10 spectators along with DePortago and his co-driver, ended the Mille.

2007 Mille Miglia Rally: Prisca Taruffi and Bruce McCaw in her father's winning car from 50 years before, now owned by McCaw.