Poland, Denmark and Norway had fallen to Nazi Germany and the blitzkrieg up through France, Holland and Belgium was just months away by the time the 1940 so-called Mille Miglia took place. Hardly a time to be thinking of pleasant pastimes like motor racing, but Italy had not yet entered the war on Germany’s side, even though the Fascists were well and truly in power, headed by Benito Mussolini.
There had been no Mille Miglia in 1939 as a result of the horrifying accident during the 1938 race in which 10 people – seven of them children – had been killed by a speeding competitor. The Italian government ruled that, if the Mille Miglia stood a chance of making a legal comeback, it was never again to charge through cities, towns and villages at breakneck speeds.
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