Archived updates from the Mille Miglia liveblog can be found below! To return to the latest instalment and comments
click here
Given how little sleep everyone on the Mille Miglia is having, we are still very much awake. Oh yes sir. The coffee will have something to do with it - it's potent alright - but what you witness on the roads does an even better job of keeping eyes extremely wide open.
Regularity event? Balderdash. Drivers are racing, and racing hard. Have you even been undertaken and overtaken at the same time? In stationary traffic? Me neither. That's certainly an event, especially when the cars are worth millions.
Obviously many people have discussed the, shall we say, enthusiastic driving on the Mille previously but it must be experienced to be believed. Truly it's shocking. Sometimes in an exciting way, often in a terrifying way. The audacity of some overtakes beggars belief, the speed through urban areas is wild and country roads are stages to many a flat out race.
And yet it all somehow sort of works. A lot of the behaviour can't be condoned but as pretty much everyone embraces it there's some kind of chaotic rhythm. When you see regular drivers moving aside to make another lane it all starts to make sense. When police motorbikes escort you through towns, halting traffic and charging through red lights, the influence of the Mille Miglia on this part of Italy becomes clear.
Furthermore, as mentioned previously, the public enthusiasm around the driving is huge. And infectious too. There have been standing starts in villages, screeching across roundabouts and thunderous passes on main roads. All of it lapped up and encouraged with waves and cheers. You are never, ever going fast enough for the Italians either.
If this sounds like a recipe for disaster from the outside that wouldn't be surprising. But somehow the Mille Miglia makes the lunacy work and it's an absolutely magnificent occasion. Only in Italy!
As a liveblog this is intended to be stream of consciousness stuff, the first words that come to mind of an experience without much prior thought or consideration.
Fine, only it's hard to put this event into words that aren't expletives. Honestly. 'Insane' comes to mind frequently, as does 'Italian', but at points already I've never had more fun in a vehicle. The Mille is patently like no other car event.
We're currently half way between Rimini and Rome, tonight's stop. I'll go into more detail about the driving later - there's a lot to say - but it's the people that make the Mille Miglia.
At every town and village they line the streets cheering, waving and encouraging every car to speed up. Kids come out of schools, old folks smile from cafes and even the police nod in approval. The atmosphere is magnificent. For those concerned that nobody likes cars anymore, come to Italy; your mind will be put at ease.
'Our' Conti GT V8 is a glorious car for the trip. Special enough to garner public reaction, fast enough to get out of trouble and comfortable enough to make long days simple. Onwards to Rome!
10 minutes in urban Brescia at less than 40mph shouldn't have been so intoxicating. Maybe it was the fumes. But suffice to say the briefest of rides in Bentley's heritage Blower is a memorable experience.
This was Bentley's dealer demonstrator back in 1930 and, after a few owners during that decade, it was sold for £120 in 1942. It was then with one owner for 50 years and eventually reached Bentley in 1997 through auction at £362,000. Given its multi-million pound value today that looks pretty good value.
As is so often the way with old cars, the engine dominates. It has a supercharged 4.5-litre straight-four (!) with about 170hp that requires a multitude of switches to fire up and great concentration to drive - no synchro here! And the gear lever appears to be in the driver's door.
The gorgeous dials read to about 4,000rpm and 120mph. It thumps along at 1,500 revs effortlessly with a noise probably best described as industrial. And loud. Certainly it never leaves you in any doubt about its potential.
The photographers were on hand to capture every inane grin so a few amusing images will follow. Now we're about an hour from race start, all the cars ready to go at the Mille museum in Brescia. Can't wait!
Italy is the only place in the world that could host an event like the Mille Miglia. Where else could police resources be spared, public squares be closed and whole towns be overrun for the sake of old racing cars? The 'regularity event', as it's officially named, hasn't even begun yet and already it's an occasion like no other.
Take scrutineering yesterday. A warehouse full of hundreds of millions of pounds worth of pre-1957 racing cars just scattered around. No protective rope, no display plinths, no apparent sense of order - look, admire, talk to owners and gaze. It was frankly incredible. Alfas, Fiats, Maseratis, Cistalias, Astons, Ferraris, Porsches, Mercedes and all manner of stuff you've never seen or heard of before. Just collected in one place, awaiting a man to give it the once over and check it's race-ready. You could spend hours in there. Personal favourites included what I think was a Maserati 250S and three - count 'em! - Ferrari 250 GTs. They look like Boanos from a little Internet research. Gorgeous cars. And the BMW 507, the Gullwings, the Lancias...
Ferrari runs an event solely for its cars alongside the full Mille and it says something of the historics on show that an array of Speciales, Scuderias, Testarossas and F12s simply didn't attract that much attention. The LaFerrari was certainly interesting but not exceptional given the context. The reality is absurd as that sounds.
Today the regularity event - by all accounts it's anything but - will begin. We will be following the Blower Bentley in Continental V8s, or at least attempting to. Before then there's the opportunity for passenger rides in the 85 year-old Blower. Make your own jokes there. Which might be fun.
1 / 5