Nineteen fifty-five: an Italian race; a German car with an English driver and co-driver. The Mille Miglia, a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR, Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson – or, more affectionately, just "Jenks" – achieved a time that's since become legend. Over 1,000 miles (1,609km), that 300 SLR achieved an average speed of just shy of 100 miles per hour (161kph), covering the entire race distance in 10 hours, 7 minutes and 48 seconds – a time that's never been bettered. And nor will it ever be, because the Mille Miglia, as it was, stopped in 1957.
Since 1977, the Mille Miglia has been run as a regularity challenge for vintage and classic cars that would have been eligible for the original race. Taking in the same Brescia-Rome-Brescia route, it has become an iconic, celebratory event, in which hundreds of rare, exotic classics are used as they were designed to be. Just to attend it is a privilege, but each year a Mille Miglia Tribute event for modern cars runs just ahead of the classics, taking in the same route and covering the same regularity challenges. The 2015 event, from May 14 to 17, cars from Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz helped to clear the roads for those hard-charging classics.
A 1am arrival, run down the Autostrada to the hotel in an S-Class driven at Moss-like speeds, impresses. There’s a 300SL Gullwing and Porsche 356 Speedster parked outside, but my car, a Mercedes-Benz 500 SL, is nowhere to be seen. Alarm set for 6am, when I’ll be given my keys, a road book and get to meet my co-driver for the first time, I endure a restless night’s sleep at the thought of what lies ahead. Having visited the Mille Miglia 10 years ago, the seniority of the challenge isn’t lost on me, even if I’ll be “competing” in the relative comfort of a modern car.
The Mercedes-Benz Tribute group is made up of Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLRs, Mercedes-AMG SLS and GTs, two of those SLRs being the rare (just 75 were built) SLR Stirling Moss models that feature unique, hilariously styled bodywork with no roof or windscreen. The SL’s luxury feels like we’ll be cheating running against the Moss model, not to mention the official, classic entries. There are a number of SLs, all wearing the same matte-black finish and red highlights front and rear, a numbered Mille Miglia badge nestling in the wing’s vents signifying these SLs as a special edition.
Unlike some of those SLRs, which wear Moss’s 300 SLR 722 race number in homage, the SL wears 417. Like Moss’s 722, that signifies a start time, 4.17am, for a driver whose achievement has been rather lost behind the incredulity of Moss’s feat. In many ways it is no less significant, or impressive: the American racer John Fitch, with his co-driver Kurt Gessl, finished fifth in the legendary 1955 race. Significantly, that fifth overall was first in class for production cars. Fitch completed the 1955 race in 11 hours, 29 minutes, 21 seconds, in what was essentially a standard production 300 SL.
That goes some way to explaining the SL Mille Miglia 417’s specification. Based on the standard contemporary SL, in either 400 or 500 guises rather than Mercedes-AMG high-performance flagships, the only changes are visual, inside and out. The standard black finish is historically accurate, Fitch’s 300 SL wearing the hue, the red highlights spun off from the iconic red Mille Miglia badge that adorns the floor mats. Otherwise, it’s all standard SL, which means, in this SL 500, a 4.7L, turbocharged V8 with 450hp mated to an easy, seven-speed automatic transmission. That’s significantly more than Fitch’s in-line six-cylinder’s 225hp, though Fitch didn’t have quite the levels of traffic to deal with.
That 417 race number underlines that Fitch and Gessl had an early start, something that the Tribute run shares. Day one involves a positively indulgent 6am alarm call; the following days require a less civilised 4am awakening, with the cars leaving Brescia for a 338km run down to the Republic of San Marino.
It quickly becomes apparent that the Mille Miglia’s status of not being a race is open to interpretation, as a mass of expensive, exotic Italian and German metal and carbon fibre escapes the city with the aid of police escorts in cars and on bikes, with a huge number of stewards and traffic officers easing progress through usually congested roads. Gridlocked junctions are passed on the wrong side of the road, with the locals happily embracing the sights and sounds of cars being driven through their country at speeds and in a manner that might more usually be frowned upon.
Driving presidential style out of town before reaching the quieter country roads, the route is punctuated with regularity trials necessitating average speeds over set distances, which are relatively simple when you have an iPad app and a sharp co-driver. It all adds to the drama, lending a competitive element to the event based on regularity rather than outright speed. Not that there’s any lack of the latter, the accompanying police turning a huge blind eye to the high pace the Mille Miglia Tribute runs at.
For anyone who likes driving, it’s essentially motoring nirvana; an opportunity to enjoy their cars on some spectacular roads, among like-minded people in some incredible machinery. I count two La Ferraris, an Enzo and countless 599 GTOs in the Ferrari Tribute; and in the Merc camp, a 300 SL Roadster, five SLR McLarens – coupes and roadsters – as well as those two SLR Stirling Moss cars, with even the SL 500 Mille Miglia 417 counting as rare with a production run of just 500.
The modern cars mix with the classics, too, with the fastest cars in the Mille Miglia catching up at points on the road. The early starts and earlier finishes allow the Tribute participants to enjoy the spectacle of the classics arriving at the various overnight stopovers, and there’s a carnival feeling to the entire event, with crowds of people lining the roadsides, waving, cheering and more often than not goading you to go faster, rev the engines harder and enthusiastically torture the tyres.
The SL 500 doesn’t have quite the capacity to thrill the bystanders as much as many of the other participants; the engine’s note, while pleasing enough, doesn’t have quite the rorty, snarling or manically revving overt character of most of the Tribute competitors. A fruitier exhaust would undoubtedly help the SL’s case, but perhaps not its intended, everyday customers.
In every other way, it’s a pleasure, though. The SL has morphed from a more purist sports car into something that blends a sporting bent with grand-touring credentials. The folding hardtop underlines that duality of purpose – a closed, cosseting coupé changing to an open, glamorous roadster at the touch of a button. If the engine’s not able to impress the bystanders, having the SL transform itself from coupé to roadster always gets a rapturous response from the Italian crowds. That roof is rarely down, though, as 30°C-plus heat, my pale Scottish skin and a lack of hair necessitates a closed environment, climate control on maximum, and electrically massaging and air-conditioned seats kneading and cooling under the Italian sun.
The classic drivers don’t have it anything like as easy – weather protection is rudimentary, the racers offering few, if any, creature comforts. Drivers and co-drivers are squeezed into sometimes impossibly small cockpits sat in the flow of the wind and super heated by the proximity of racing engines and exhausts. Tales of melted footwear are common, the drivers getting through long, tough days on a mix of adrenaline and the goodwill and support of those people lining the road.
In the SL 500 417 Mille Miglia, Fitch would have approved of the pace, if perhaps not the levels of luxury. The on-board economy trip computer reads zero per cent for all its three measures of fuel saving, revealing everything you need to know about the speed and intensity of the route.
Day two starts at 4am, but feels like it’s over in a flash, the run to Rome a real highlight, particularly the last few miles into the city, the police facilitating a breakneck pace through the ancient city’s famously difficult traffic. The classics aren’t far behind, and we’re there in time to watch the magnificent sight of vintage cars being used as they were intended, a few wearing battle scars from two tough days on the road.
Day three starts with another 4am rise, which means light traffic and a swift escape from Rome, running up the west side of Italy’s “boot”, through a who’s who list of historic Italian tourist destinations, including Siena, Pisa and on to Parma. It turns out to be the longest yet most enjoyable day – the mix of sensational roads and breathtaking scenery punctuated by brief visits to some Italian landmarks creating a drive that’s as hedonistic as you could wish for.
Being a Saturday means the crowds of onlookers are even larger, with legions of young and old waving, cheering and willing the fast-moving parade of beautiful machinery through with unbridled enthusiasm. The roadsides are littered with people’s classics and sports cars, many chancing the police’s blind eye and exercising them with rare commitment. It’s difficult to imagine another country’s people being so passionate or accommodating to such an event.
The final run from Parma is short – an early start still, but finishing before lunchtime in Brescia with enough time to take in a run up the banking at the famous Monza race circuit. Exhausted and elated, the key is handed over and a cold drink enjoyed with new friends.
Calling to mind the memory of Fitch, whose 1955 achievement was every bit as sensational as that of Moss, it’s difficult to comprehend just how heroic those men really were when the Mille Miglia was an actual race, long before the advent of the safety technology and comfort we all take for granted in modern cars. As a snapshot of the past, though, the present Mille Miglia event is as good as it gets – it’s an inestimable privilege to take part in and comes highly recommended.
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