You don't just have to sit in sporty luxury cars to be cheered on the Mille Miglia. Sometimes a small car is enough to generate a lot of attention.
Without exaggeration: everyone knows it, everyone loves it - the beetle. The successful model from Volkswagen from Wolfsburg, which rolled off the assembly line for the first time 81 years ago and has been sold over 21,5 million times. And everyone knows the advertising slogan, which is so inextricably linked with the Beetle: "It runs and runs and runs ..."
And even today, countless beetles run across paved roads in Europe, concrete highways in the USA, dusty roads in Mexico and even on racetracks, such as at the Oldtimer Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. The Mille Miglia is a very special race, but in the middle of everyday Italian traffic. The name of the traditional event is no longer entirely correct, since 1.000 miles are known to be 1.609 kilometers, and the “Mille” now extends in a triangular course over 1.800 kilometers from Brescia to Rome and back again.
When this prestigious race from 1927 to 1957 was all about speed, the record was just under eight hours and 55 minutes. Driven in 1940 by the legendary Fritz Huschke von Hanstein and his co-pilot Walter Bäumer. The almost insane average speed at that time was 166,7 km / h. As I said, we're talking about 1940! Today, for safety reasons, the focus is on a total of four days and uniformity, as is customary in modern classic car rallies. Dozens of special stages and speed tests determine the winners, so certain distances have to be driven to the hundredth of a second, otherwise there will be penalty points.
Nevertheless, during the Mille Miglia on the connecting stages, between the tests, the time and passage controls, then again and again racing-like scenes, the road traffic regulations that also exist in Italy are then partially overridden. The speedometer also shows 125 km / h in urban areas, red traffic lights are always overlooked mercilessly and if all lanes in front of traffic lights are blocked by other road users, you can also use the sidewalk. Roundabouts are suitable for ingenious overtaking maneuvers, which are then driven on the left instead of the right, with and without the accompanying blue light motorcycle police escort.
In these scenarios, such a beetle is actually underpowered between all the historic and horsepowered racing cars of the past decades. But only really, because the pretzel beetle we drove from 1951 (all participating Mille Miglia vehicles must have a year of construction between 1927 and 1957 and a similar vehicle must have been part of an MM during this time) namely the legendary Strael Pretzel Beetle, which won the class with around 60 hp in 1954. The two fast Swabians Paul Ernst Straehle and Viktor Spingler affectionately called their racing beetle "Dapferle" and Italy was thrilled with the breathtaking performance of this Volkswagen, which is called "Maggliolino" in Italian. This racing success of yesteryear still contributes to the fact that in addition to Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo and Co., the Italians, who are enthusiastic about motorsport, also cheer the VW Beetle and prove their love for the air-cooled four-cylinder boxer with “Maaaagglioliiiino” chants.
The Strähle-Mille-Miglia-Brezel-Beetle had the starting number 294 this year and fought in the middle of the 430 field of starters. Former racing driver Jochen Mass started right before that with the number 293 in a Mercedes 190 SL and was overtaken immediately after a few corners. The Lady team (car number 289) in the Jaguar XK-140 roadster was a tougher opponent. The successful racing driver Claudia Hürtgen excelled on the wooden steering wheel, and Gaby von Oppenheim, who was always joking, was the co-driver. But why can this reseda-green beetle keep up with the powerful cars despite its “only” 60 hp, or even overtake it by the dozen? The secret of the agile cornering robber lies in the then sister car, the Porsche 356. The two shared the original VW engine housing and so the interior could be exchanged, even according to the Mille Miglia regulations. In addition, there are the large Porsche drum brakes, wide tires, sports bucket seats and additional instruments - the result was a competitive racing and rally beetle.
Herbert Diess, Volkswagen Group board member, competed in the Bugatti Type 35 from 1928 without tricks and a double bottom. That was not necessary either, because this year's start number 49 has an inline eight cylinder with 170 HP under the hood. "This means that you can easily run at 200 km / h and the race car has already won over 2.000 races in the past nine decades," enthuses Stephan Winkelmann, President of Bugatti.
But back to the Beetle: Not only cheering spectators on the track, from the eight-year-old Bambino from Brescia to the almost hundred-year-old fan in Ferrara, were thrilled by the fast Maggliolino. Prominent passengers such as the British Porsche refiner Magnus Walker along with girlfriend and co-driver Hannah Elliott (in a black 300 SL gullwing) also came to Siena for a lunchtime stop to exuberantly share their joy about the high-performance Wolfsburg.
In addition to the exams, the numerous passages through the town are what make the Mille Miglia so attractive. In Brescia, Sirmione, Ferrara, Ravenna, Milano Marittima, Perugia, Siena, Bologna, Parma, Rome and many other towns and cities tens of thousands of enchanted spectators, sometimes at a picnic and sometimes in a rocking chair, cheerfully pass by the pack. With the constant cries: "Avanti, avanti!", "Vai, vai, vai!" And "Che bella macchina!" We were cheered again and again, even after 16 hours behind the wheel. And not only when the sun is shining and the outside temperature is 25 degrees, but also, as on the third day of the race, with cold wind and constant rain. The Tifosi even came to the 903 meter high Futa Pass with flags, rattles and whistles. When the entrance to the Piazza del Campo in the Tuscan city of Siena came to tears, even the hard-nosed teams were so tired, the reception of the car-loving Italians was so beautiful, so overwhelming. Mille grazie!
Wolfgang Wieland / SP-X