A SPORTSCAR FOR THE MILLE MIGLIA
Upon the arrival of this year Mille Miglia, which ended on Sunday, May 18th in a crowded Viale Rebuffone at Brescia, a collector friend of mine, who had already entered three editions of the Corsa with some small and undriveable sports cars of the forties and fifties, coming out from the comfortable seat of the Jaguar XK 120 OTS driven by his cousin, told me: -Here we are and I tell you, this is just the right car to face a thousand mile weekend!.
I'm stupefied and think by myself : "What? When we sold to his cousin this beautiful 1951 roadster, it seemed that it was not as noble and important as any Stanguellini, Ermini, Moretti, etc., but today, after having galloped around Italy together with another four hundred crews, we find that a “popular” XK 120 is a car that should not be snubbed? ".
Reflecting better, I realized that for him, as for many other enthusiasts, the ambition to drive rare cars, which can guarantee an entry ticket to the famous Brescia event, is often detriment of fun and in some cases, when we are more than sixty years old, it borders on an unbearable physical effort; of course, if it was only for the MM organizing committee or the expert public of MM fans, we should see an event made only by unique pieces, unusual “barchettas” or Italian pre-war sports cars with extraordinary career!
If we have any ranking ambitions, we all know that the current rules of a regularity rally are rewarding older and rarer cars with some coefficient points, so, with the same performance, a beautiful Aston Martin of the fifties is less qualified than a 1930 “Le Mans”; this way, the market has undergone changes, evolutions and strong surges in the prices of some peculiar cars, that are MM eligible and with a greater coefficient. Finally, there’s now quite a strong demand for racing cars of the thirties and original sports cars of the fifties that actually participated in the real race between 1927 and 1957.
Having said that, it seems silly to try to connect any roadster to the Mille Miglia phenomenon, but we have to admit that any beautiful Italian or English sports car of the fifties is the most enjoyable way to run around safely from Brescia to Rome and back;and then, looking for any historical significance,how can we forget that the real "gentlemen drivers" after the 2nd World War took part successfully in the race with the same car in which they took a drink on the Riviera or a cup of coffee at the Caffè Impero in Piazza della Vittoria?
We cannot forget, then, that the most elegant cars of a whole generation borrowed, form and pattern of development from their participation in the Mille Miglia; this is the case, in addition to the already mentioned Jaguar, of the small Triumph TR2 and the nice Austin Healey 100, in the four or in the six-cylinder version. Although built in thousands examples, these cars have nothing to envy to the rarest AC Ace Roadster, Arnolt Bristol Bolide and Lancia Aurelia B24 Spider, stylish, modern and quite comfortable.