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A Thousand Miles
to Yesterday
The Mille Mig/ia ran from 1927 to 1957, with time off for war.
Today a rally pays it homage-ond brings ghosts to life
Story by Denise McCluggage,
photos by Jesse Alexander
T
he proprietor of the tiny dark cube of
a restaurant in Brescia tells us it was
in this very place that the Mille Miglia was born some 60years ago.
Imagine it. Men shattering grissini into
crumbs on the tablecloth, making red rings
with their wine glasses as they fill the
space with words and gestures, each more
excited than the other at the idea of this
fantastic race-a Mille Miglia.
Apocryphal or not, I like the picture.
And it came to pass that from 1927 to
1957, except for the war years, a parade of
racing sports cars was flagged off a ramp at
the edge of this city-just north and east of
Milan-to zag down the calf-edge of the
Italian boot on public roads lined with
cheering spectators before cutting inland to
Rome and then northward across the long
passes of the Apennines through Florence,
Bologna and then Modena, Parma, and back
to Brescia-l000rniles in a country measured in kilometers.
On May 12, 1957, the race died on the
homestretch near the little town of Guidiz16
zolla along with Fon de Portago, Gunnard
Nelson and a clutch of on-lookers.
Booting our way toward Brescia for the
start of the 1986 Mille Miglia we stop at the
white marble stele rising in a field at roadside a few kilometers short of Guidizzolla.
It had been erected in memory of those who
died here. On one slab are the names of five
women, on another the names of four men
and on a third the names of the driver, Portago, and his companion, Nelson, whose
Ferrari, probably with a failed tire, delivered death that day.
Now the crowds are back.
Now the Mille Miglia lives again albeit
more in the spirit of that commemorative
monument than as a race.
Now it is more a social event than serious
competition. The entry list bears many doubling of names as husband and wife take to
the road together: Congleton-Congleton,
Baptista-Baptista, Kummer-Kummer, Pilkington-Pilkington, Alboreto-Alboreto (yes,
that Alboreto), etc.
And there was supposed to be a Moss-
Moss, but more of that in next week's installment.
The Mille Miglia of the 1980s is an evocation of the original, a mobile homage, a
moving museum. Run first in its revival
dress in 1982, then 1984 and now 1986, the
Mille Miglia of today is more a rally than a
race, with accurate timing rather than time
alone the criterion for competition. Now
two overnight layovers and lunch stops
break what was a mad dash of some dozen
hours from Brescia to Brescia.
But what a marvelously successful memorial it is. What a vital tribute it is to the
cars that plied that varied course, to the
people who lined the roads and cheered.
And what joy it is to those who participate.
Made clear is the reason they called them
sports cars in the first place.
Next week I'll be more detailed about the
cars and people--and about why you should
beg, borrow, mortgage, lie and/or cheat to
next year be a part of the Mille Miglia. Yes.
Next year, not two years hence. Because
1987 will mark the 60th anniversary of the
AutoWeeIc July 7, 1986
Mille Miglia and the 30th anniversary of its
cessation, the organizers-charmingly
named The Musical Watch Veteran Car
Club-will break the every-two-years
rhythm.
For now, let's yield to nostalgia and look
backward through the eyes of others.
I had stopped in Modena on the way to
Brescia to see Isabelle Haskell de Tomaso,
a friend and co-driver of mine (along with
her husband, Alessandro) in an OSCA at
Sebring in 1959. Had she ever done the
Mille Miglia? What did she remember of it?
Isabelle Haskell de Tomaso:
Alessandro drove in 1955 (a Maserati)
and tipped it over not long after the start. It
AutoWeeIc July 7, 1986
Top: Crowds mob C/s/talla 202SC at the start
In Brescia; right: Jean Sage takes a
corner In a Ferrari 340; above: going
through the Ratlcosa pass
was upside down and the gasoline was
pouring out and Alessandro was trapped
underneath. An old man just stood there
saying: "Que peccata. La benzina!" (What
a pity, the gasoline!)
But a little boy about 10 and some others
pulled Alessandro out.
A few years ago when we were putting up
the de Tomaso Automobili building a man
who was involved with the windows asked
to shake Alessandro's hand and showed him
a picture of the crash. Turns out he had
been that little boy.
Then in 1957 Alessandro and I were offered a lot of money to drive together in an
OSCA. We talked about it for 24hours. He
said he would do it if he drove and I would
just sit. I said I wouldn't 'just sit' so we
didn't do it.
In Brescia in the piazza where the cars are
registered and checked in I see many ghosts
of races past-some actually there and some
who disappear with a harder look.
17
Above: Paracchl-Huschek 1937 Auto Union
at speed; Ie": Phil Hili, John Lamm competed
In a 1951 A/fa Romeo disco volante 2000S
Olivier Gendebien is real. He is driving a
Mercedes-Benz 300SL. He is gray-haired,
handsome as ever, with that same delightful
way of speaking as if .constantly surprised.
Nerve damage from a bicycle accident has
left him slightly palsied but has not deprived
him of his spirit.
Baron Huschke von Hanstein. I knew him
when he was in charge of Porsche' s racing
team. At Sebring in the late '50s he had
promised me a Porsche Carrera in the threehour race the day after the 12hours. It
20
was a promise made at a party, but he had,
any regrets aside, stuck to his word in the
sober light of paddock. And I had done very
well-kept the car pointed the right way and
finished second to a Ferrari.
Now I see him, dapper as ever, looking
absolutely no different. I ask him about his
Mille Miglia memories.
Huschke von Hanstein, winner in 1940
(BMW):
I remember the famous Mille Mig/ia of
1940 as first of all the last great race before
the war, and secondly, because Germany
had already been six months at war with
France and England, and Italy was still
neutral, so we all came here . We all came
here and found all our old friends from racing who were officially all terrible enemies
who were officially at war. We found them
here and it proved to me that sporting
friendships are much stronger than any official enemies.
I was in a BMW. It was the first time a
relatively small car-it was a 2.0Uter-won
the Mille Miglia. Up to then only big cars
had won.
You see a lot here of the 328 BMWs, but
it was not like that. BMW had made a
streamlined version. The streamlined body
brought the top speed up from about 160I70kmlh to 225 .
The roads were not bad roads, just normal Italian roads-narrow, with many,
many trees. Every IOmeters a tree. But the
main problem is the road is near the Po
River a1)d it is very, very foggy. There we
AutoWeek July 7, 1986
Above: Mercedes 300SL spreads Its wings at
Senigallla control; left: Stirling Moss and
co-dr/ver Dietrich Von Boett/cher check map
lost a lot of time and we had to catch up.
I am very proud to have won this race of
1940.
They start them one by one as darkness
gathers. Off the ramp with roars of the engines matched by roars of the crowds. 1 see
a Bugatti with two large men growing out of
it like a bushy plant out of a flower pot. (I
am to see them later on the Raticosa pass,
leaning in the turns like that plant in the
breeze.)
They are lucky . It is not particularly
foggy along the Po this night, and they need
only drive to Ferrara-two or three hours
away-where they are to stop overnight.
What must be a major difference between
the Mille Miglia 1986 and the original races
-apart from the fact that the roads remain
open to traffic now-is that then the drivers
were the stars. After all, the cars were vehicles-interesting enough but primarily adjuncts to the drivers. Today the cars get
most of the attention, the write-ups in the
press kit and the camera lenses turned toward them--occupied or not.
Some drivers, of course, are still the main
attraction . Alboreto could be on a hay
AutoWeeIc July 7. 1986
wagon and get the same screaming following from the younger set.
And the old-timers remember Stirling
Moss who will hold the Mille Miglia record
in perpetuity, winner in 1955 in a Mercedes
with his indomitable colleague, the British
journalist Denis Jenkinson.
The second day finds the lunch break at
the proud seaside city of Senigallia. The
Adriatic is as flat as a lake. The sun is
bright. Stirling is. in search of coffee. Does
running the old route bring back memories?
Stirling Moss:
The interesting thing to me is it's amazing the sort of speeds one did in those days.
I can't believe it. And when I see the people
lining the streets-you know, it was like
that then, and that was the nerve-wracking
thing, of course, driving at up to 180mph
with people pressing in at the sides of the
road.
It's the atmosphere, really, that I remember most. Italians do get so carried away by
motor cars. They are so enthusiastic. They
leap up and down. And apart from the kids
-little old ladies and nuns and everybody
jumping up and down. Extraordinary.
When we come into certain controls guys
come up to me and nearly hurt me by
throwing their arms around me. "When I
was a bambino I saw you go through ... "
All the stories, you know . Hugging me,
kissing. Couldn't have been more than four
years old then. They do get so carried
away. It's the Italian way I suppose.
What else do I remember? I remember
going over the edge with the Maser. We had
some dreadful trouble when the front end
locked up and went straight over the edge.
Luckily there were trees to stop us. It was
after Rome, I think, but you'd have to ask
Old Jenks.
The fear is more likely to stand out than
just ordinary things. There' s mile after mile
of this sort of thing. Although every mile is
different, what stands out is when something
dreadful happens. I remember when the
brake pedal broke, that was a pretty frightening thing. (In 1957, another Maserati,
shortly after the start.)
No, I don't suppose winning the Mille
Mig/ia was as satisfying as winning a
Grand Prix. The thing you've got to remember is that you never go across the line and
get the flag as you do in a Grand Prix.
When I won it I didn't know I had won. I
21
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crossed the line and they said: " Well , you
were leading at the last control," but I did
not know I'd won until the people finished
after me and had slower times.
It was very, very anti-climactic really because you don't get the enormous emotional
thing you know, immediate gratification and
God Save the Queen and the tears in the
eyes and all that. It doesn't happen like
that.
No, setting the course record here was
not like breaking a lap record in a GP car.
For a start, it takes two days a lap to do
practice-that's if you hurry-and then the
race took one day, and when you get to the
end you don't really know what you've
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drove as fast as I could all the way and
Jenks was giving me the signs and I was
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Mail checks to . THE TIRE RAe •.
430 South Mayflower
South Bend IN 46619
in practice I could see the road. Say, on a
140mile-an-hour curve I could see all of it
across the inside of it.
But when the people were lining the road
-five million spectators around the course
-I couldn't see all the curve. I had to interpret every signal Jenks gave me. If he
would give me a signal of a waving handand it was only hand signals-I would have
to interpret how fast his wave meant in relation to what we were doing and what speed
we should be doing at the next corner.
And so the whole way was like guide dog
control. If he would go like that, a slow
wave (Stirling pats the air gently) then I
would know: Drop off a little speed. If he' d
go like that (faster pat) then I would know it
was a lot of speed to drop off-irrelevant to
what speed I was doing. Whether it was 100
or 180 didn't make any difference, because
it was what he knew was relative to the
following corner.
The two pioneered pace notes, Jenks devising a rolling scroll to give him a picture
AufoWeeIc July 7, 1986
of the course. Imagine the memory , imagine
the cool. Imagine the faith. But why not
radios?
Stirling:
I said to lenks- I had f orgotten-' 'Why
didn't we try radios?" and he said: " Well,
we did. We had the best in he world. " I
said: "Well, what happened? "
He reminded me that as we practiced he
had read me the notes through the radio and
I had said: ' That' s fantastic!" Then I said
to him: " Now I' m going to really try on the
Futa, which you could have a bit of a go on,
really. It was open to traffic, but you could
see a bit and I really had a go. I said to him
when we were finished: " Why didn't you
read me the signals? " And he said:
did!"
I hadn' t heard a word.
Only a f ew years ago he met some university guy, a medical guy, who told him
that when you are at extreme risk, when
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I ferrari 'egg' was designed for the Mille M/gl/a
your life is in danger, all the things you
don't need to know go out the window. I
mean you could, say, burn your foot and
you wouldn't know it until later. So the fact
that someone is talking to you doesn't mean
a thing.
I was concentrating so hard on self-preservation that my ears were closed off! And a
typical lenksism-he said: "That just
proves if rally drivers were really going
they couldn' t hear their pace notes!"
Since I couldn't hear him we had to rely
on visual signals. It was quite an interesting
thing that I could interpret his signals so
precisely. We didn't sit down and work
them out, they just happened. He would
Look at the notes and know that just when
we got over this brow of the hill it is a fairly
fast right but it is nowhere near flat out, so
then he'd give me a wave to the right and
then a wave down. Well, I managed to interpret his wave to be pretty near to what
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the speed should have been.
Now obviously if it were exact I probably
would have gone a couple of miles an hour
faster here and a bit less there, because we
did actually make a bit of a mess once and I
went slightly off with the back wheels, but
in a not too serious place.
Truly, when I think about it the interesting thing is that I never did any other than
just a couple of run-throughs with him. I
never said: "Look, wave like this or like
that" -it just sort of happened. Purely on
an understanding, not on any plan.
It was incredible actually, the trust.
Incredible, indeed.
After the lunch break the "we" of this
story-me, Jesse Alexander, photographer,
and his 18year-old son, a grand lad called
Jess-got on with it.
.
We followed the entrants tightly, . Jesse
hanging out of the sunroof of the rented
Mercedes 190, and me getting into the spirit
of the chase, half-thinking those cheering
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24
member Ty Power had been married to
Linda Christian, and it was the beautiful
Linda who had run across the plaza at Rome
to embrace the dashing Marquis de Portago
in his Ferrari on his final day.
As sandwiches are made La Senora Teresita Tonini, whose family has been associated with this inn for generations, tells us
about the pictures, shows us a guest book.
Jesse's Italian is far better than mine, but
well short of fluent. I seem to be muttering,
"Si, capito," when I actually understood
very little.
Tyrone Power was a family friend.
"They did not just come to sleep, to eat,
goodbye-they were friends!" she said.
That much I did understand.
In the guest book I find many names I
know-Vic Elford. I had known him in my
rally days in Europe and coincidentally had
been trying to return a phone call from him
just before leaving for Italy.
Paul Frere, Jenks himself
And then with a sudden
crowds were for me. Through ancient cities
Ryland-Ryland 1955 HWM threads Its way
whose stones echoed' to the memory of
through a town under watchful eye of police
sharp exhaust notes and throaty engines.
Faster, faster-thundering through on the
tail of an OSCA, squeezing past a Maserati, across the bottom half of a page wishing
following with trepidation behind a poorly best wishes to the establishment the names
driven yellow Testa Rossa Ferrari until good of the mon ami mates-Peter Collins and
sense dictates a stop for a different vantage Mike Hawthorn. The date was April 25,
point.
1957. Two young Brits on a practice run of
San Marino, Gubbio. Scenic beauty and the Mille Miglia . Within two years one
personal pageantry _ Lovely. Then we cut would be champion, both would be dead.
off westward to avoid the long haul to Rome Senora Teresita Tonini:
Journalists, drivers, all were here. The
with the intention of finding a place for the
night and then heading for the hills between hotel in Florence was too far. They stopped
Florence and Bologna to choose vantage here, they ate here, they telephoned here.
points for the Futa and Raticosa passes. Tutti. Many goodfriends.
Jesse remembers a particular spot where he
On the day of the race all of the windows
spilled out with people.
shot Moss and Jenks in 1955.
Nuvolari stayed here many times. Ferrari
The next day on the Futa looking for a
supplier of a take-along lunch we by chance liked it here because it was close to the
choose a handsome old inn with a front door garage. Look here. Here is a Christmas
two long steps from the very center of the card from Ferrari himself. Many good
Mille Miglia route. The interior is tile-cool friends.
And friends of my friends are friends of
and green with plants. Lots of framed
photos on the wall--cars, drivers. And mine.
Tyrone Power!
It sounded ever better in Italian. AW
But even that fits the Mille Miglia. I reAutoWeeIc July 7, 1986