The cars were very much the stars at the 2012 Mille Miglia Commemoration in May, the 30th such event to pay tribute to the original non-stop race on public roads from Brescia to Rome and back again from 1927-1957. For years the re-run was packed with the rich, famous, noble and beautiful, but this time they took a back seat. The Automobile Club of Brescia had bent over backwards to make sure the 382 examples of motor racing history in this year’s regularity race were worthy of their much coveted place.
They were selected strictly for their historic, sporting and technical characteristics and year of construction. Almost 60 of them actually competed in the original race and at least two won it.
To begin with, the organizers brought together no fewer than eight OMs – a 665 SS, a 665 SS MM and six 665 Superbas – all made by the Brescia company whose 665 Sport won the first Mille Miglia in 1927, driven by Fernando Minoia and Giuseppe Morandi. There was the actual Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Mille Miglia touring roadster that Baconin Borzacchini and Amedeo Bignami drove to win the 1932 Brescia-Rome-Brescia marathon. And then there was the BMW 328 Mille Miglia Coupé that won the oddball 1940 event, which was nine laps of a 103-mile closed circuit from Brescia to Cremona, Montichiari and back to Brescia again.
There was hardly a dry eye in Brescia when the race’s shortest run of all got under way. Sir Stirling Moss and ex-Jaguar chief test driver Norman Dewis (pictured below) did an honorary lap of the city in a 1952 Jaguar C Type, the model in which they won the Grand Prix of Reims 60 years ago, the first ever victory in a car fitted with disc brakes. One of the best racing drivers Britain has ever produced, the 82 year-old Moss said before sliding behind the C Type’s wheel that his disc brakes at Reims were incredible. His opposition – Ferraris and Mercedes-Benz – could only brake once or so before their brakes would overheat, but his Jaguar could always stop later and faster time and time again. Moss still holds the record for winning the fastest Mille Miglia in 1955 in a works Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR, his time a staggering 10 hours 7 minutes 48 seconds to cover the 998 miles at an average 98.5 mph.
Competitors in the 2012 Mille Miglia Commemoration came from 17 different countries, no less, including most of Europe, India, Japan, South Africa, the USA, Canada and even Hong Kong. They were treated to a gentlemanly tour of some of the most spectacularly beautiful parts of Italy including Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Tuscany and Lazio as millions of enthusiasts from a 190 municipalities turned out to cheer them on.
The race was won by Argentineans Claudio Scalise and Daniel Clara Munt in a 1930 Alfa Romeo 6C 1500, (pictured above) which exchanged the lead for much of the 1,600 kilometers with 10 times winner of the re-run Giuliano Cané and his wife Lucia Galliani in a 1939 BMW 328 Mille Miglia Roadster, who eventually came second. Third was 2011 winner Giovanni Moceri and Tiberio Cavalleri in a 1933 Aston Martin Le Mans and fourth Giordano Mozzi with his wife Stefania Biacca in a unique Lancia Astura 1000 Miglia originally built in 1938 especially for Gigi Villoresi to run in the 1940 Mille Miglia, but he retired.
