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| Ramp marks start of the 1000-mile adventure, as it has done since 1927 |
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The Mille Miglia first ran in 1927 and once a year for the next three decades Italy would grind to a standstill as the world's finest drivers and cars descended on Brescia. Everyone from Nuvolari to Juan-Manuel Fangio took part in the 1000-mile dash, and nearly every marque imaginable came to Italy with cars specially created to survive the endurance road race. No manufacturer did more than Mercedes-Benz to dominate the Mille Miglia and their most famous win, that of Stirling Moss and journalist Denis Jenkinson in 1955, is still spoken of as one of the greatest drives of all time.
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| Ferrari awaits scrutineering in Brescia |
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Driving a Mercedes 300 SLR, Moss (with Jenkinson as his co-driver) covered those 1000 miles in a staggering time of 10 hours and 7 minutes - an average speed of nearly 100mph. And this, remember, on open roads lined with spectators and even cars coming the other way. Moss's drive was the highlight of the Mille Miglia; its low point came just two years later when the aristocrat and racer Alfonso de Portago crashed his Ferrari into a section of the crowd.
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| Six stopwatches needed for most complicated time trials |
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The horrendous accident took the lives of 12 people, including five children, and for 20 years removed the race itself from the sporting calendar. In 1977 the Mille Miglia returned, no longer a round of the world sportscar championship, but a nostalgic reminder of those 30 years when the world's most evocative cars and drivers would scream around Italy. To ensure the revived Mille Miglia would not see a repeat of the terrible events of 1957, the organisers turned it from a flat-out race into a series of time trials, with the most precise drivers earning points for accuracy and consistency.
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