The Alfa Romeo 6C 1500 SS, in which Giuseppe Campari and Giulio Ramponi won the 1928 Mille Miglia, has done it again. This time, the race was not about speed but perfect timing. The Campari car won the 2007 Mille Miglia Retrospective regularity race in May, driven by Luciano Viaro and Luca Bergamaschi.
Viaro is a seasoned regularity race competitor, having won the 2005 MMR, the 2004 Nuvolari Grand Prix, the 1999 and 2001 Mil Milas in Argentina and the 2004 Mille Miglia of Japan.
Photo: Peter Collins
It was a question of steady progress by Viaro/Bergamaschi as they inched their historic car up the 2007 MMR’s classification table and were in the lead by the time the caravan streamed into Modena, just over 60 miles from the finish line at Brescia. They had moved ahead of 1989 and 1997 MMR-winner Flaminio Valseriati, who finished 3rd this year in his 1933 Aston Martin Le Mans, and then picked off 2nd placed Bruno Ferrari’s 1927 Bugatti T37. It was a fitting end to an MMR charged with the excitement of celebrating the race’s 80th birthday, and was the latest in a long line of victories by Alfa Romeo. Their cars dominated the original race, having won 11 of the 14 Mille Miglias that took place between 1928 and 1947. In 1933, Alfas actually took all of the first 10 places—an incredible feat.
The 2007 Mille Miglia Retrospective’s 375 entries, all built between 1927 and 1957, included 39 Ferraris, 34 Mercedes-Benz, 32 Alfa Romeos, 25 Porsches, 24 Bugattis, 20 Fiats, 19 Lancias and the same number of BMWs.
Photo: Peter Collins
For many, the event’s star car was the Ferrari 315S in which Piero Taruffi won the last Mille Miglia in 1957. Estimated to be worth $6 million, the Ferrari is owned by John McCaw, who competed in the 2007 event with Prisca Taruffi, the Silver Fox’s 48-year-old daughter, who is a racing driver in her own right. Prisca was visibly moved when she was reunited with her father’s magnificent, 3,780-cc, V-12 Ferrari. She said, “My dad wanted to win the Mille Miglia at all costs and his 1957 victory was special for our family. He had promised my mother that he would stop racing when he won the event. He had previously competed in 14 Mille Miglias, but he had always been stopped by mechanical trouble. Then, at 51, he finally succeeded.”
by Robert Newman
