The original Mille Miglia ran just 24 times between 1927 and 1957 and was won by an Italian car 21 times. This open-road race took the lives of 56 people in 30 years and after Alfonso De Portago’s terrible crash in 1957 it was condemned by all, including the Vatican, and banned.
It returned as a rally with special stages for three years around 1960, and again as a three-day classic car parade/regularity in 1977.
One thousand miles in three days, doesn’t sound much, you could do it in less than 24 hours in a Ford Focus, but these are old and temperamental machines, without the brakes or engine cooling to comfortably mix it with modern traffic.
It’s something of an epic just to get around the route, which runs in a huge teardrop from Brescia, across to Ferrara, down the east side of the country to Rome and up the west side via Siena, Florence, Modena and back to Brescia.
Regular readers will know what I think about rally regularities (just like motorsport, with none of the fun), but when offered a chance to drive Bentley’s own Blower (tested elsewhere) on the event, it wasn’t a difficult decision. Bentley had entered a team of two Blowers, the Birkin team car which was raced at the 1930 Le Mans 24 Hours and the road car, which was also the demonstrator. They keep them well, but my steed had suffered a string of fuel-supply problems on last year’s Mille and, as it proved, this event, too.
Bentley is very much in the spirit of the late, great Ray Wiltshire when it comes to weather protection in its vintage fleet. The former Bentley Drivers’ Club chairman was once asked by an American woman how often the hood was erected on his vintage Bentley. “Madame,” he bristled, “never!”
Given that heavy rain had already started to fall in Brescia’s square before the start, it meant that the pile of wet weather gear amassed by my driving companion Richard Charlesworth and I was the size of a small buffalo. Struggling into it all was a regular chore over the three days.
You can only lose a rally like this, as penalty points cascade down for lateness, failure to maintain the right speed over piddling distances, failing to keep to the route, or being too early.
There are no formal prizes for great driving, except the appreciation of crowds. While some competitors adopt the plethora of modern time-keeping and global positioning satellite (GPS) technology, we had nothing more sophisticated than a wind-up stopwatch and the road book. We’d be putting the do back into derring.
At over 700km, the last day is the longest and also most spectacular. Siena’s Piazza del Campo, Florence’s Duomo, the Raticosa and Futa passes are part of the route, as is the Ferrari factory and its Fiorano test track, then north via the stunning Piazza del Comune in Cremona and back to Brescia.
By now the on-tour mentality is rife. Richard and I are collecting sexy policewomen (Rome cinched it), on the Futa Pass we diced with a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse driven by Harry Metcalfe of Evo magazine (it’s about carving through traffic and people yield to the imposing Bentley but not the Bug), and then there were snacks; Italian pork scratchings (disgusting), crocodillio, a chilli-flavoured nutty fudge, more wiggolino and torone, an almond flavoured bar as hard as moon rock, which splintered in my mouth and blasted back over my face leaving me resembling a reversed-out Dalmatian.
The rain returned, yet still the Italians turned out to see and cheer the mad motorists and their road-stained cars. Half of me is still out there, on that long final leg into Brescia, howling along the plains of northern Italy, face lit by the chiaroscuro glow of the map light, chasing the yellow puddle of the headlamps, the rhythm of the double declutch, the flickering ammeter, the dab of the brakes and the crackling of the exhaust. Taking each corner as if it will win the love of your life, as fast as you dare and then some. Hour upon hour, mile upon mile, a road without end.
Well, that’s what it felt like until the fuel pump stuttered again, losing us an hour or two as our mechanics Ray Steele and Robert Morris coaxed the old girl back into life. And as if it had had enough of all this ill treatment, the gallant 83-year-old machine burned out its cooling fan fuse as we finally rolled on to the finishing ramp. Wreathed in steam we took the applause, proud, but secretly knowing that it was all about the car, not us.
We caroused like the night they invented Champagne and as I wearily glugged the last glass Richard reminded me that on Monday I would no longer be a Bentley Boy, but plain old A English. No popsies offering wiggolino, no generous, smiling crowds, no sexy sunglasses attitude from leggy Rome policewomen. Where are my sweets, why isn’t everyone waving at me?
It might be just a cavalcade, but the Mille Miglia is unlike anything else and it’s the only regularity worth doing.
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