Fchatter in 2010 Mille Miglia

Hello boys & gals. I love classic cars & road trips so when my Swiss friend entered his Aston Martin DB2 for this prestigious event, how can I not take leave & join him? It's been a lifelong dream to attend the Mille Miglia for me so I flew to Zurich & rented a car down to Italy. All unplanned & never on these roads. LHD etc. all a little alien but very soon got adapted.

Unfortunately, weather changed for the worse in Europe. It's been 25degrees & suddenly rain came & went down to 7~11

My spanking new Volvo C70 (140km! mileage & it has to be red in tradition of Mille Miglia) from Hertz has not been able to do it's open work other than let me dump my luggage in the rear seat!
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I stayed a night in Lucerne which was less than an hour's drive from Zurich & drove another 200+km SE to Milan which csaw lots of majestic mountian ranges & tunnels but most importantly the 17km Gottard Pass which was rather mundane as we're only allowed to do 80km/h.
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Arriving on the evening in Milan was not that bad but hunting for a hotel took a while in this rat mazed city!
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Unfortunately, still very wet day & we hope for the best in Brescia where the Mille Miglia takes place.

But hey, how can I miss the Ferrari store for you guys but other than a F612 passing me in Milan, this Mini will have to make do
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Arriving in Brescia was faced with terrible waether for rain fell so heavy that streets were flooded

Pity those rally cars that are open tourers! I saw a pre-war car went by & driver was in rain coat.....

Took me a long time to get to the city centre (Centro) as we missed a turn & went back to Milan!! Next time, key in Piazza Della Loggia into your GPS. The place where the rally starts.

I registered for a Press Pass as I'm covering this event for a magazine

Finding a hotel in this weather took us more than 2hours as the city stood still & almost all were fully booked but we finally found a great one where it hosts some of the sponsors & participants.

The blue one looks like a Talbot from a Dutch entry.

The "race" starts @ 1930hrs later to stop for a short night in Bologna. Maranello is very near

Signing out 5.20am Brescia, Italy. Let's pray for good weather & there's actually blessings for the participants @ 10am!
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Bonjour'no! I survived the Mille Miglia

Awesome rally, simply awesome. Almost 1400km of the best roads & view in Italy. We've covered everything from trunk roads, villages, B roads, mountains, countryside, snow, icy roads, hills, ravines, cliffhangers whatever u call it, we have it! Weather changed from a warm 23degree C to a cold -5 in the mountains!

Not to mention the pelting rain that almost destroyed the rally a few days before & it was reported that this was the worst rain season Italy has ever seen in 30yrs!

However, the morning started with a clear blue sky @ 6am then threatened with a mild rain before it became sunny throughout the day. The race started @ 7.30pm but the Ferraris had an early start @ 6.15pm.

I had a press pass & followed the whole rally but it was rather gruelling & I seriously wondered how some of those cars survived. Well, some did breakdown & some did not complete. There were some accidents too & I witnessed a BMW support vehicle crashed onto a cliff wall, narrrowly missing their 507, the ravine was just a deadly few feets away!

Like the old famous Mille Miglia quote, "to win the race, you must first finish the race!"

I've got over 1500 pictures & will be posting some here. Please let me know what you'd like to see.
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First off, the area near the parade square was cordonned off & only allowed for vehicles with permit.

Press cars came in all sorts, from classic 911s, Mercedes to Ferraris & of course SUVs!

Mille Miglia has 375 cars & those that can't make it in the last minute or disqualified had the next in line called in so you'd see many other classic cars waiting around the area.

The participant cars came in all sorts & sizes from the important multi-million race cars to simple Fiat 500 & even a volkswagon beetle. Some came alone while others had to drive the car back home after completion. However, the "superpowers" had a team of support crew, vehicles & spares. This is particularly obvious from BMW, Mercedes & Jaguar while even Saab Museum fielded at least one car as well with a team of support.

This is a 2N2D rally with dozens of timetrials & hillclimbs/decent competitions. It starts off on the evening of Thursday reaching Bologna @ midnight then re-start @ 6.30am for Rome. Rest another night then re-start from Rome @ 7.30am then head back to Brescia passing Florence etc & reaching the destination @ midnight!!
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Although there's "only" 375 cars for the "race", I believe that at least 10 times more were involved along the way. Ferrari Club came with a host of many Ferraris & these are owners ranging from 275GT4, 250LM, Enzo, F40s, F50s, classics, 288GTO!, 360s & of course all the latest 458s, Scuderias, Californias & whatever there are.

Mercedes also fielded their very very interesting SLRs Stirling Moss "reproduction". I've never seen so many of them & God they sound good when they floor them!

Heck, even the latest Jaguar XJL sounded awesome when they floor it.

BMWs, Audis, Porsches, Alfas all had cars that came along the Rally & also some really delightful classic car owners who kept the Rally "happy" with them sounding off their musical horns, wheel spins etc to entertain the crowd that cheered along. So, the entire journey was really quite a mobile carnival!

The best part was we were given green light to drive @ our best traffic were stopped for us. So, what do you do?

Unfortunately, my paltry C70 could never keep up with the best & surprisingly, some of those rally cars out braked & outran me! They are at least 50 years old

We were to give way to them & sometimes, I helped to opened up the traffic as well but most importantly to shine the road for them @ night. You see, in the countryside without street lamps, it was pitch dark & those cars had headlamps that were not so useful.....
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