The first Mille Miglia attracted a strong entry, that included all the leading Italian drivers, along with such public figures as Leandro Arpinati, fascist mayor of Bologna and the then President of the Italian Football Association. However, foreign participation amounted to no more than three diminutive Peugeots in class H (up to 750cc).
At 8 a.m. the race was officially started by Augusto Turati, Secretary of the National Fascist Party.
First off down the Viale Venezia was the Isotta Fraschini of Aymo Maggi and Bindo Maserati followed, at two minute intervals, by competitors in classes up to and including class C and at one minute intervals after that.
Spectator safety was a major concern for the organizers and contemporary accounts suggest that 25 000 or more soldiers lined the route to control the onlookers. Race rules obliged the competitors to observe conventional traffic regulations throughout. The flat stretches leading to Bologna suited the powerful Alfa RL SS of Gastone Brilli-Peri and at the end of the first stage it lead the OM of Nando Minoia by four minutes and the Alfa of Attilio Marinoni by five - at an average speed of 106.5 kph.
At Rome, Brilli-Peri had increased his lead over Minoia to fourteen minutes, after averaging 88 kph for 587 kms., an outstanding performance considering the condition of the roads which, in particular, took a heavy toll on tyres.
'By the end of the race Gildo Strazza (Lancia) had replaced no fewer than six tyres, while Maggi and the Danieli brothers (OM) had each replaced three..'
However, shortly after the Spoleto time control Brilli-Peri took his RL SS past its limit and was forced to retire with a seized engine.
Ultimately, victory went to the three OM's (also winners of the team prize “Coppa Brescia”), ahead of the Lambdas of Strazza and of Pugno and the unwieldy Isotta of Maggi. The honour of Alfa was salvaged by Arturo Mercanti, director of the Automobile Club of Milan who, driving under the pseudonym 'Frate Ignoto' (Unknown Friar), finished seventh in his RL SS.
What impressed everyone was the average speed of the winner, which exceeded all expectations. The organizers had based their calculations on an average speed of 49kph for Class B cars and 30kph for class G (up to 1100 cc). Corriere della Sera wrote:
'It took little more than twenty hours, not even a day and a night, to cover 1700 kilometres: an average speed of over 77 kph. An express train could not have done better. The automobile traversed the streets of Italy as if it controlled time and space. This is a significant triumph for the automobile, but equally admirable is the achievement of those men who so courageously drove and disciplined it”.

It is doubtful whether the “four musketeers” originally intended the race to be an annual event. However, rumour has it that the day after the conclusion of the 1927 race, Augusto Turati gave a detailed account of the event to Benito Mussolini, who apparently made his wishes clear with the short but unequivocal instruction: 'It is to be repeated'.
With this blessing preparations proceeded for the second running of the event in 1928.
Despite the uncertain economic situation, manufacturers took up the challenge of developing cars better suited to the difficulties presented by the race. Ettore Bugatti, for example, married his supercharged T35C engine with a long chassis taken from a Grand Prix car, to produce the type 43 specifically for the occasion. Three of these cars were entrusted to Gastone Brilli-Peri, Pietro Bordino and Tazio Nuvolari who had driven a rather uncompetitive Bianchi to a commendable tenth place in 1927. His future rival Varzi took the wheel of a privately entered T35. Alfa Romeo produced the new dohc 6C 1500SS and the car given to Ramponi had the added feature of a centrifugal supercharger in a cylinder fixed head, or Testa Fissa, engine design, that eliminated any cylinder head gasket problems during long races.
For improved weight distribution and road holding the designer, Vittorio Jano, placed the engine 20cm back compared to series versions. Another example of the manufacturers' quest for optimum performance was the Maserati 26B MM driven by Aymo Maggi and Ernesto Maserati - a Grand Prix car (hence without headlamps, electric system or starter) hastily modified to meet the rules and demands of the Mille Miglia.
Among the Class C cars, the last to leave from the Viale Venezia, were the three Chrysler 72's, one driven by Emilio Materassi and another by Baroness Maria Antonietta Avanzo (the event's first woman competitor) and her co-driver Baron Manuel de Teffe, son of the Brazilian Ambassador to Rome. These cars went on to perform very well later in the year at Le Mans. Adding to the competition , and to the American presence, were two La Salles in the hands of the well-known drivers Minoia and Mario Danieli as well as a French Lorraine Dietrich B3-6, which had beaten an OM at Le Mans in 1926.
After starting well and occupying the first three places at Bologna [Nuvolari leading with an average speed of 124kph], the official Bugattis all encountered difficulties and the Alfa of Campari arrived in Rome with a lead of five minutes over Nuvolari. Luigi Gismondi in a Lancia, who had succeeded in occupying second place at the Tolentino checkpoint, was unfortunately forced to retire near Rovigo. His position was then occupied to the finish line by the OM of Franco Mazzotti and Archimede Rosa. All existing records were easily broken and Alfa Romeo won the Coppa Brescia, team prize.

Crisis conditions in the world economy meant there was no foreign participation in this third Coppa delle Mille Miglia. Among the Italian entrants, the Maserati brothers engaged Baconino Borzacchini to drive a class E (up to 2000cc) 26B MM, the most powerful vehicle in its class. (Press reports give its engine size as 1700cc). Alfa Romeo countered in the same class with its new cylinder fixed head 6C 1750 SS, designed by Vittorio Jano to prevent gasket failure. Also of interest was the Fiat 521 Siata of Giorgio Ambrosini, manager of the Turin tuning firm and Piero Dusio, future creator of the Cisitalia.
The lack of foreign entrants was balanced somewhat by more women drivers. Prominent among these were Baroness Avanzo and the actress Mimi Aylmer, Eugenia Spadoni , (said to be admired by Prince Umberto of Savoy and by Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in- law) in a Lancia Lambda saloon, who finished a remarkable eleventh in class D (up to 3000 cc).
A significant innovation in the rules governing the race was that race numbers were allocated by the drawing of lots by all entrants in classes F to C a composite group covering all cars from 1101 cc to 5000cc, which nonetheless competed in their separate classes during the actual race.
Why this was done is not clear - probably to stimulate interest or to counter unsportsmanlike behaviour by some of the teams.
Borzacchini took the early lead ahead of the Alfa 1750's of Campari, Varzi, Brilli-Peri and Bornigia followed by the lightened and Cozette supercharged OM of Morandi and Rosa. At Bologna Borzacchini had set a new record average speed of 127.66kph. He reached Rome in 6 hours 23 minutes, another new record, with a lead of three minutes over Campari. However, Campari, not forgetting what had happened to Brilli- Peri's Bugatti the previous year, played a waiting game. Almost inevitably the pace proved too much for Borzacchini, whose dream of setting a new speed record for the race ended when he was forced to retire, rather sadly, at Terni his home town. As in previous years, Strazza's Lancia performed magnificently, attaining second place at Spoleto and maintaining it all the way to Ancona where he was finally overtaken, first by Morandi's OM and then, in the final stretch between Feltre and Brescia by Varzi's 1750 SS. Intermittent rain limited new records to classes E and D only, although the first nine finishers all beat the record set by Campari - Marinoni in 1928. The team prize was won by Alfa Romeo for the second year in succession.

After only three years it had become clear that the Mille Miglia had secured its place in the public imagination. The extent of this was underlined by the public controversies that arose when the race route was altered, following the intervention by powerful local interests, after the original route had already been published in four-colour bilingual [Italian and French] form. After the usual start from Brescia, competitors crossed the river Po after a deviation via Manerbio and Cremona. This had been requested by the powerful 'Ras' Roberto Farinacci who was anxiously telegraphed by the race Director, Renzo Castagneto to confirm that the change had been made. There was a similar outcry in Ancona when the checkpoint at Loreto was changed in favour of the larger town Porto Recanati.
Also, recognising the growing popularity of the event and in order to promote motor racing in general as a sport, the organizers introduced special prizes for 'non-expert' entrants, not included in the main list of participants and who are not directly or indirectly part of a Manufacturer’s team'.
This initiative was reinforced by the Gazzetta della Sport, which published a column called 'Volunteer drivers for the Mille Miglia' to enable aspiring young drivers to advertise their availability to car owners. Further evidence of the growing popularity of the sport was the establishment, for example, of the Scuderia Ferrari , which had already been established in Modena to engage in competition and even to rent cars to private drivers who wished to participate in motor racing. This subsequently famous Scuderia entered three Alfa Romeo 1750GS's for the 1930 Mille Miglia.
Serious competition for the Alfa Romeos and the OM's was reduced to the vast Mercedes SSK of Caracciola and Werner when the Bentley team, unable to complete their preparation in time, withdrew at the last minute. Luigi Arcangeli was first at Bologna with an average speed of 138.825kph, but his car left the road before reaching Florence.
The race then became a duel between Varzi and Nuvolari who had the advantage of having started ten minutes after his rival. In the final stages, Varzi, in the lead, was seemingly unaware that Nuvolari was close on his heels. Legend has it that Nuvolari drove in the dark without headlights to hide his presence. In the event, he overtook Varzi in Desenzano almost in sight of the finish line. For the third consecutive year, Alfa Romeo won the team prize.

With Italy severely in the grip of the worldwide economic crisis, the press, particularly in Britain, began suggesting that, because of the high cost of organising the race, the 1931 Mille Miglia could be the last. The 'Gazzetta dello Sport' however, focused on a different matter, breaking the controversial news that Rudolf Caracciola, who had earlier contracted with Alfa Romeo for the 1931 season, had suddenly decided to enter the Mille Miglia driving for Mercedes.
Alfa Romeo denounced this failure to honour a formal agreement to the International Sporting Commission which, in turn, referred the matter to the Automobile Club of Germany. The German club publicly deplored this shallow and dishonourable behaviour but asked Alfa Romeo not to pursue the matter any further. Alfa Romeo declared itself to be satisfied with this public recognition of its rights and closed the matter with regard to the Automobile Club of Germany and with Mercedes-Benz.
With the Italian car industry in deep crisis the Mille Miglia organisers created special categories for unlimited, supercharged cars, for saloon cars and for “utility” cars (low price small capacity cars). These 'Utility' cars had to be regular series built cars, in production for more than three months, more than 50 units had to have been manufactured, they had to be priced on the market at no more than 24 000 lire and had to have a maximum engine capacity of 1500 cc. To challenge Mercedes, Alfa Romeo entered two new 8C 2300's in the hands of Nuvolari and Arcangeli. Bugatti had Varzi at the wheel of a powerful T50GS but he retired after only 20 kms with a damaged water pump.
Caracciola's Mercedes was first at Bologna, crushing the previous record with an average speed of 154.222kph. Nuvolari reduced the gap in the Appenines but he was already beginning to encounter the tyre troubles that would hamper the Alfas throughout the race. After the lead had changed back and forth several times Caracciola got ahead at Bologna and, with Arcangeli having clutch trouble, stayed there to the finish line.

The victory of Mercedes in 1932 and the record average speed it achieved added considerably to the growth in prestige and standing of the Mille Miglia as a truly international event. What is more, a foreign victory obliged the Fascist regime to support a further running of the event despite growing criticisms of the high costs associated with it. Naturally, the intention was to ensure that the last recorded winner of 'the most expressive and dynamic manifestation of Italian sport ' was an Italian in an Italian car.
There were several innovations for the race. Pre-race scrutineering was transferred to the recently completed Piazza della Vittoria in Brescia. Also, the innovative Castagneto allowed journalists [such as W.F. Bradley of Autocar] to follow the race in their own cars and brought the starting time forward to allow spectators to see the finish in daylight.
Nuvolari in his Alfa 8C 2300 was first at Bologna with a new record average speed of 161.36 kph. Varzi was a mere five seconds behind in his Bugatti T55 with Nuvolari's new team mate, Caracciola, lying third.In the end it was Baconino Borzacchini who won in his Alfa after the withdrawal of all the early leaders and after his own epic drive from Rome to Brescia during which he broke every record along the way. 
Luigi Scarfiotti, son of the ex-president of Fiat and father of Ludovico, Grand Prix driver for Ferrari from 1963 until his tragic death in 1968, was third overall in his Alfa 1750.

The political fortunes of Augusto Turati, the great Patron of the Mille Miglia, were in decline by the Autumn of 1930 when he was replaced by Augusto Giurati as Secretary of the Fascist Party. Then, in August 1932, he was removed from the editorial board of 'La Stampa' for differences with the ruling regime, expelled from the party and confined to Rhodes.
From 1932, hon. Pietro Parisio was appointed head of the RACI [Reale Automobil Club d'Italia] as Government Commissioner. In 1932, in a letter to Castagneto he rebuked him for addressing a call for funds directly to the RACI offices in the towns through which the race was to be run and his 'misunderstanding of the independence of the RACI offices' that 

Fortunately for the Brescian based race on this occasion Mussolini sided with it against the Commissioner:

In a remarkable reversal of the events of the previous year, Nuvolari tasted success in 1933. This time it was Borzacchini who broke all existing records to lead at Bologna and later at Rome with an average speed of 161.883 kph. Then misfortune struck when he was forced to retire at Narni, not far from his home town of Terni and Nuvolari took the lead. However Nuvolari again had trouble with the tyres of the Alfa 2300 he was driving for Scuderia Ferrari and was therefore unable to set a new race record. For the first time an official English team, MG, participated in the Mille Miglia.
They won the 1100cc class and the team prize, with Lurani/Eyston at the wheel of the class winning car and the team prize, the Brescia Grand prix.

This year the route was altered to include Mestre and Venice, crossing the long and recently completed bridge over the lagoon before passing through Treviso to Vicenza, from where the traditional route was again followed.
Nuvolari was at the wheel of an Alfa 8C 2300, entered by the manufacturer, which had now returned to racing. Once again it was him who was involved in what amounted to a two car duel. This time it was with Varzi and the Alfa 8C 2600 entered by the Scuderia Ferrari where Varzi had replaced Nuvolari as the principal driver. And this time, unlike in 1930, it was Varzi who had the advantage of starting after Nuvolari, remaining behind him as far as Bologna. Varzi had the added advantage of tyres that were better suited to the wet conditions - Pirellis with special treads cut into the side walls for better water dispersion. Rain notwithstanding, Varzi set a new race record without, however, breaking Borzacchini's record for the Brescia-Bologna stretch.
Motor sport in Italy gained another event when, at the end of May, and with the example of the Mille Miglia in mind, the Regio Automobile Club d'Italia [RACI Royal Automobile Club of Italy] organised the Giro d'Italia Gold Cup. Entry was limited to series built cars not participating in that year's Mille Miglia.

In late 1934, negotiations for Nuvolari to join Auto Union broke down, apparently due to opposition from the company's main driver, Hans von Stuck. However, the German manufacturer did succeed in getting Varzi on its payroll. Meanwhile Nuvolari had reconciled with Ferrari but his involvement was limited to Grand Prix races.
In the Mille Miglia, Varzi drove a hastily converted two-seater Maserati 6C 34 Sport which the manufacturer had been preparing for the Scuderia Subalpina in Turin. First at Bologna, but not able to beat the 1933 record, was Mario Tadini's Alfa Romeo. Varzi was lying second but he subsequently retired at Siena. Meanwhile Carlo Pintacuda had taken the lead in a somewhat strange two-seater which had been cobbled from a single-seater Alfa Romeo P3 by the Scuderia Ferrari.
Nothing noteworthy occurred after this except that the young Pintacuda and his equally diminutive navigator, the Marquis della Stufa held on to win at a slightly better average speed than the previous year. As the first unknown driver to win the Mille Miglia, Pintacuda became an instant celebrity.
The failure of the 1934 Giro d'Italia meant that the ‘utility’ cars were back in the Mille Miglia with the 'amateur' drivers receiving prizes for special categories.

International tensions following Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia had important consequences for the Mille Miglia. Not only did this mean no foreign participation, but the League of Nations imposed a fuel embargo on Italy to discourage any further expansionist ambitions of the 'Duce'. 
In response to this and to conform with Mussolini's policy of economic self-sufficiency for Italy, the race organisers introduced special categories for cars using a variety of fuel substitutes. This was not entirely unprecedented since Augusto Agostini a military General, had participated in the 1933 Mille Miglia in an Alfa Romeo 1750GS, fitted with a 'gas generator' invented by Marco Ferraguti, Professor of Agriculture at the University of Perugia. 
However, not only had Agostini and his crew member Sergio Ferraguti, son of the inventor, failed to finish the race within the official time limit, but radio reports on the day described their three attempts to DISCUSS at Piccione between Perugia and Gubbio. 
Nonetheless, they did manage a somewhat respectable average of 51kph. 
It came as no surprise three years later when the cars using fuel substitutes performed no better. Of the six cars using substitutes, only the Fiat Balilla of Guzman/Palelli finished the race, having taken three hours and 28 minutes to do so at an average speed of 50kph.
In an attempt to save face it was announced that the winning Alfa Romeos had also run on fuel substitutes. This was stretching the truth since the cars had used a mixture of petrol, alcohol and methanol - a commonly used mixture that overcame problems of spontaneous combustion in excessively fuelled engines.
Despite all this, the race turned out to be a riveting contest between the Alfas of Antonio Brivio and Giuseppe Farina after Clemente Biondetti had been first at Bologna with a record setting average of 166.366 kph. Finally it was Brivio who was first across the finishing line, setting a new record average speed of 121.622 kph.

The significant aspect of the 1937 race was that the Royal Automobile Club of Italy decided to abandon conformity to Appendix C of the AIACR [Association Internationale des Automobile Club Reconnus], for  National Championships, in favour of a new 'National Touring ' category for sports/ racing cars with bodies that still had to conform to Appendix C but with chassis derived, with few modifications, from series production cars freely available to the public. While this made eligible cars more affordable for aspiring participants, performance was notably inferior to cars conforming to the 'International Sports/Racing'  category.
This partly explains the failure to beat previous class records although poor weather was also a factor. Competitors were hampered by rain and fog and even snow on the Futa pass to the North of Florence. Nonetheless, race-winner Pintacuda did manage to set a new record average for the Brescia-Bologna stage of 169.373 kph. Because of a more relaxed international situation, two French manufacturers, Talbot and Delahaye, made official entries, the latter surprising everyone with an excellent third overall.

The much publicised Benghazi -Tripoli race, run in December 1937 on the newly opened Libyan coastal road, introduced the new 'National Sports/Racing' category which retained the basic regulations governing the 'National Touring' category but allowing certain technical modifications such as the use of special cylinder heads. While this race was a predictable fiasco, with only twenty two starters, it provided a competitive spur to Mille Miglia organiser Castagneto, to make his race even more spectacular. He substantially altered the route, eliminating most of the difficult Appennini stretches, using the Firenze-Mare motorway and the Via Aurelia between Florence and Rome and, after Rome, sending the drivers directly to Fano, a coastal town between Rimini and Ancona.
The weather was excellent and the participants responded. Pintacuda, in his 'International Sports/Racing' supercharged Alfa 2900 set a new Brescia-Bologna record with and average speed of 178.703 kph while race-winner Clemente Biondetti set a new overall race record average of 135.391 kph, ahead of fellow Alfa drivers Pintacuda and Piero Dusio. Delahaye and Talbot finished fourth and fifth while the two- litre unsupercharged BMW 328's, led by Englishmen A.F.P. Fane and Bill James who took eigth place overall, performed impressively. 
Tragically, the Lancia Aprilia of Bruzo-Mignanego skidded out of control on the Bologna ring road, killing ten spectators, including seven schoolchildren. The Fascist Government immediately banned the Mille Miglia from running on the nation's public roads.

When the Mille Miglia was suspended in 1939, what was dubbed by the press as the 'African Mille Miglia' was held in March 1939 along a 1500km stretch of the Via Balbia between Tobruk and Tripoli. Three factory entered BMW 328's gave some international flavour to a rather uninspiring event.
Giovanni Comini, provincial party secretary of Brescia since 1935, when he was only 28 years old, initially received this sharp response from Mussolini when he tried unsuccessfully to persuade him to approve a Mille Miglia for 1940:
‘I am fed up with your Brescians and your Mille Miglia’.
But soon after this the Dux recognised the political importance of the race and a somewhat truncated Mille Miglia was run on roads closed to traffic according to the prevailing law.
Open to cars over 750cc, it consisted of nine laps of a closed 167 km triangular circuit connecting Brescia, Cremona and Mantua. This was an echo of the pioneering speed trials known as the 'Brescian weeks'  which had been run over a similar route as far in the past as September 1899, 1900 and 1904.
Entry was limited to cars conforming to the 'National Sports/Racing' specifications but these were modified to attract foreign entrants. 
Cars had to have production series chassis and engines under 4500cc. 
Despite France and Germany having been at war for seven months already, Delage entered two cars driven by Taruffi/Chinetti and Comotti/Rosa alongside a team of factory entered BMW's. An interesting decision was taken to admit two Auto Avio Costruzioni 815's built by Enzo Ferrari for Lotario Rangoni and Alberto Ascari. 
These were clearly not production cars- they were experimental cars. 
But, it was argued, they were intended for subsequent series production and already advertised as such.
The streamlined, ultra-light BMW Touring of Milan designed Coupe took an early lead which it maintained to the finish line. Second, fifteen minutes behind, was the Alfa of Farina and Mambelli followed by the BMW of Adolf Brudes and Ralph Roese who had received orders from on high to slow down to avoid further humiliation for Germany's Italian Ally.

Staging this first post-war Mille Miglia after an interregnum of seven years and all the devastation, disruption and political upheaval of the war and its aftermath, presented a daunting challenge - not only to the organizers of the race, the Automobile Club of Brescia but, above all, to the State itself.  
The new Government had to demonstrate that it was possible, in a democratic society, to do what whatever was achieved during the fascist era - and this presented major problems. The country's physical infrastructure, particularly bridges, had to be rebuilt. The extensive organisational gap left after the disappearance of the pervasive fascist network , though this was welcome, had to be filled. And then there were particular problems such as the post-war emergence of actual banditry along the Apennine roads.
The race organisers had their own problems. To begin with, they had to postpone the event from the planned starting date of 27th April, to 21st June, to enable the National Road Board to repair the roads and to give the manufacturers time to prepare new cars. They decided to return to the traditional Brescia-Rome-Brescia route, but problems with infrastructure compelled them to settle on an 1800 km route that, for the first time, ran clockwise - taking in Milan and Turin before returning to the Viale Rebuffone starting point along the 240 km stretch of highway connecting Turin and Brescia. There had been concerns as to the numbers of suitable cars remaining in post-war Italy but these were cleared up in 1946 and, furthermore, manufacturers such as Maserati, Cisitalia and Ferrari had introduced a range of innovative new cars. However, the major problem remained the rationing of petrol and tyres. Special concessions were made that permitted competitors to buy heavily discounted Pirelli tyres and gave them coupons to buy petrol along the route. Consequently the number of entries soared to 245! In the event, only 155 cars actually left the starting line - no doubt because tyres fetched temptingly astronomical prices on the black market.
The race was open to unsupercharged sports cars per Appendix C of the newly formed FIA [Federation Internationale de l'Automobile]. Also eligible were cars conforming to a new 'International Touring' category - open to cars that were regular series built production models. This was a necessary innovation under the circumstances but it presented problems because of the difficulty of ascertaining essential details such as, for example, the number of identical units produced. The event was named the 'Franco Mazzotti' Mille Miglia Cup, in memory of one of the founders of the Mille Miglia whose plane had been shot down in 1942.
His place as President of the Organising Committee was taken by his brother-in-law Giulio Binda, a class winner in a Bugatti in the 1927 race and by Vittorio Folonari, the new President of the Automobile Club of Brescia. Also involved in the Organising Committee were Aymo Maggi, one of the founding 'Four Musketeers'  and President of the newly formed ASAI [Associazione Sportiva Automobilistica Italiana and Tonino Brivio, President of the reconstituted Commissione Sportiva Automobilistica Italiana [CSAI] of the Automobile Club d'Italia [ACI]. The necessity to cooperate in organising the 1947 race ended the pointless and even vehement disputes that preceded this realignment of the various bodies that controlled motor sport in Italy.    

The race was won by Clemente Biondetti in an old Alfa Romeo belonging to his navigator, Emilio Romano which had been modified to meet the new regulations. Biondetti had a stroke of good fortune when a violent downpour occurred and his closed car was less adversely affected than second place Nuvolari's  small Cisitalia spyder.  

The second post-war Mille Miglia used the same route as in 1947 with a substantial number of 167 starters. These included a works Healey team; a Westland drophead driven with his son in the Sports category by Donald Healey himself, and two Elliot saloons in the Touring category driven by Lurani/Sandri and Haines/Haller. This foreign participation, though small, was a tangible indication of a return to normality. The only mistake made by the CSAI was the temporary adoption of fixed numbers assigned to drivers at the beginning of the racing season. This caused considerable confusion among the spectators who were accustomed to progressive numbering according to the order of departure and even more so among the timekeepers who had to record the placings at each checkpoint. 
As in 1947, the race became a duel between Nuvolari and Biondetti, both driving works Ferraris. But this year's contest had all the elements of high drama. To start with, it was a battle of the giants. Tazio Nuvolari had driven a Bianchi to tenth place in the inaugural Mille Miglia as far back as 1927 and had won outright in 1930 and 1933. Biondetti's first Mille Miglia was in a Salmson 1100 in 1929 and he, too, had won twice - in 1938 and 1947.
In 1948 Biondetti was the favourite. He had won the last real Mille Miglia and earlier in the year took first place in a Ferrari in the extremely challenging 8th Giro di Sicilia, which had been revived using the Mille Miglia as a model and which amounted to an anti-clockwise circumnavigation of Sicily along the coastal roads from Palermo back to Palermo.
To add to this, Nuvolari's participation at the wheel of a Ferrari had a fictional quality of its own.  When Enzo Ferrari personally approached him he was in a convent on the shores of Lake Garda having treatment for lung problems and recovering from the trauma of the premature death of his two young children. Alfa Romeo had their own intentions regarding Nuvolari. They had been experiencing difficulties in resuming regular production of series built cars and had assigned to him one of two experimental Alfa 'Corse' berlinetta-coupes cars. When Ferrari heard of this he acted with all the speed his cars are famous for. He rushed to Brescia ahead of the Alfa personnel and succeeded in persuading Nuvolari to drive the fourth car Ferrari had prepared - an open car with cycle mudguards - hardly the most suitable design for the race conditions that awaited the convalescent champion.      
Nuvolari took the early lead, covering the Forli-Rome stage at an average speed of 125kph - despite an accident in which he lost his left mudguard and damaged his bonnet which would not close and which he discarded at the Rome checkpoint. At Livorno [Leghorn] a second accident damaged his rear spring and unhinged the navigator's seat. Undeterred by these setbacks Nuvolari led Biondetti by 29 seconds at Bologna. Finally, and extremely reluctantly, he was forced to retire when, in Reggio Emilia, a suspension pivot became unstuck and his car became a virtual death trap. Legend has it that earlier, in Modena, Enzo Ferrari had begged him to stop because of the dangerous condition of his car and that a priest, replete in ankle-length habit, was persuaded to stand in the middle of the road in order to prevent the 'Flying Mantuan' from proceeding any further.
Biondetti then had a clear run to victory.

For this 16th Mille Miglia, the race reverted to the traditional distance of around 1600kms and the anti-clockwise direction; proceeding towards Rome along the Tyrrhenian sea and returning to Brescia along the Adriatic. Another innovation was to base the race numbers on the hour and minute of each participant's start, which enabled the spectators to calculate their own classifications.
In the technical field was Ferrari ahead given the uncertainty of Alfa Romeo policy regarding its experimental berlinettas coupes.
Without all this uncertainty and confusion Alfa could have provided stiffer competition for the two litre Ferraris driven by Biondetti, Piero Taruffi and Felice Bonetto.
However, Ferrari made the most of this opportunity and Alfa paid the price for its lack of an effective strategy. After a fast start by Bonetti, Taruffi took the lead until he was forced to retire in Ravenna. Once again the ever patient Biondetti went on to win,establishing an unequalled record of four victories in the Mille Miglia.

For Italians, number 17 has the same bad connotations as number 13 in English speaking world.
This year, the 17th Mille Miglia, in the hope that this might balance the negative influence of the number  of fortune, the name of the race was changed to “La Mille Miglia del 1950 per la Coppa Franco Mazzotti”. Unfortunately this did nothing to prevent the many accidents, problems and disputes that were inevitable given the size and popularity of an event that attracted no less than 375 starters, a new record. Entering the race had now become no more than a procedural formality. Anyone with a car and an internationla racing driver's licence needed only to fill in two copies of a form and pay a 15 000 lire fee, which included insurance cover. Consequently 116 Fiat 500's started along with 52 cars in the Touring class up to 1100cc and 36 in the class above 1100cc. This meant that no fewer than 204 of the starters were entered as regular production cars, using low octane petrol. However, an examination of the average speeds of the class winners in the smaller capacity Touring category reveals that these coincide with the maximum speeds claimed by the manufacturers. Since this is clearly impossible bearing in mind the reduced speeds through such mountain stretches as the Apennines, it is obvious that these were not series production cars. Once again the route was changed - around 1600kms but this time clockwise from Brescia along the Adriatic coast to Rome and back to Brescia along the Tyrrhenian sea.
The race could have been a true contest between Ferrari and Alfa Romeo, which had returned to competition in the initial Formula One World Championship. But the Milanese firm, which had entered an improved [3 000cc] version of its 1949 competition berlinetta-coupe car, committed the equivalent of race suicide by putting it in the hands of Consalvo Sanesi instead of the rising star Juan Manual Fangio who was given the less capable Bornigia brother's version - even though this car had beaten Ferrari in the Giro di Sicilia.   
Ferrari entrusted its 275S to the two Grand Prix drivers Alberto Ascari and Gigi Villoresi.
These cars were fitted with the new cylinders engine designed by Aurelio Lampredi who had succeeded Gioachino Colombo at Maranello.
Colombo had already improved his 12 cylinder engine, boring it out to 2300cc. One of these engines powered the private blue berlinetta-coupe which Giannino Marzotto drove to victory in this 1950 Mille Miglia. The other was mounted in the Barchetta driven into second place by motorcycle champion Dorino Serafini who rode a Gilera to win the European 500cc championship in 1939.
The winner's three brothers also took part in this Mille Miglia, all driving Ferraris. Only Vittorio managed to reach the finish line, ninth overall. Count  Giannino Marzotto's finish was memorable. After a victorious thirteen hour drive he emerged from his car wearing a double breasted suit and a tie which matched the colour of his vehicle. He was the youngest driver ever to win the Mille Miglia. Amongst those he beat to the finish line was four times winner Clemente Biondetti in a works Jaguar. The Coventry firm had identified the Mille Miglia as an excellent platform on which to demonstrate the capabilities of its XK120 against its fellow British competitor Healey, which was planning to an entry onto the potentially lucrative United States market.

While the 1951 race was marred by bad weather, it confirmed the belief that the ideal configuration for long distance road races in Italy is a car with an engine capacity of around two litres - despite Gigi Villoresi's victory in a four litre Ferrari. 
This theory had been underlined by earlier in the year by the victory of Vittorio Marzotto in the Giro di Sicilia in a two and a half litre Ferrari 212 - an extraordinary car rather amusingly painted like a Sicilian barrow. This curious car was part of Giannino's Marzotto's response to Enzo Ferrari's obdurate control of design at Maranello which Marzotto believed was causing the braking and handling of his cars to be compromised. Marzotto was one of the wealthiest men in Italy. To prove his point, he had bought several Ferraris and, ignoring Ferrari's specific policy to the contrary, had their bodies and chassis modified by his own mechanics. His own excellent performance in the 1951 Mille Miglia in one of these cars, known as the 'egg' because of its curious shape and which literally poked fun at Enzo Ferrari, further underlined his point.
The Venetian aristocrat actually lead the race until he was forced to retire shortly before Pescara but family honour was sustained by his brother Paolo who, having already finished seventh overall and second in class in the Giro di Sicilia, reached the finish line in Brescia fourth overall and first in class in his Ferrari 166 - another Marzotto modified car. Marzotto had clearly made his case. 
However, it was another two litre car that really astonished everyone. Having taken tenth place in Sicily with a standard 1750cc B10 with Umberto Castiglioni at the wheel, Lancia achieved a remarkable result in this Mille Miglia when Giovanni Bracco drove an almost standard B20GT into second place overall - a mere twenty minutes behind Villoresi's specially designed competition Ferrari of double the capacity of the Lancia. 
While the four Lancia B20's entered were actually works backed cars, Gianni Lancia had arranged for them to be registered in the names of their drivers so as to conceal his company's direct involvement in competition. But designer Vittorio Jano' s presence in the Piazza della Vittoria unmasked the truth. 
The race route was again changed. The Brescia/Rome route was much the same as in 1950 but the route from Rome to Florence this time passed through Viterbo and Siena. To attract more entries, there were no less than eleven classes. Some of these were introduced in the hope of eliminating, as far as possible, time wasting technicalities and after race checks. The difficult to monitor 'Series production Touring' category was eliminated and replaced by two others based on varying interpretations of the 'International Grand Touring' [GTI] category. One of these, for so-called 'utility' cars [low priced, small capacity] permitted certain engine and chassis modifications approved by the GTI but mandated the use of series production bodies - a limitation not applicable to ‘vetture veloci’  [fast cars].      

In a futher effort to increase the popularity of the Mille Miglia and to widen its mass appeal, the organisers raised the number of classes to sixteen - going to the extent of of a last minute inclusion of a category for military vehicles, even though these obviously had nothing at all to do with road racing capabilites and techniques. There was a massive response with 501 starters out of 607 entries, all of which had been accepted without the application of any selection criteria - not entirely unusual, since this was true of other events of equal international standing such as Montecarlo and Le Mans. Fortunately this did not mean that the matter of safety was overlooked and, for example, from 1951 onwards all crews of open cars were required to wear crash helmets.
With the readmission of the German Federal Republic to the FIA in 1951, both Porsche [which had won its class at Le Mans earlier in the year] and Mercedes-Benz entered works teams. The 'Three-pointed star' marque once again relied on the strategies of Alfred 'Don Alfredo' Neubauer, who had directed Caracciola's victory in 1931. The Porsche team was led by Fritz Huske von Hanstein who had left BMW for whom he had won the Mille Miglia in 1940.
Great Britain was represented by works teams from Jaguar, Aston Martin and Healey while France was represented by determined teams from Renault and Panhard who were attracted by the index of performance class introduced that year.
From the new starting ramp in the Viale Venezia, cars of seven Italian manufacturers, headed by Lancia, Alfa Romeo and Fiat, set off to compete in the International Grand Touring category [up to two litres].
Ferrari chose not to enter this category to avoid a potential repeat of the humiliation it had suffered at the hands of the Lancia Aurelia B20 in the category GTI 2000 [International Grand Touring] in the Giro di Sicilia. Consequently it entered its 166 Berlinetta coupes in the Sports/racing category. Alfa Romeo had given its 1900 Sprint Corto to World Champion Juan Manuel Fangio in an attempt to bridge the gap with Lancia,  while Fiat was trying out its new 8V, impressive on paper but unsuccessful in practice.
In the event, fortune favoured Ferrari which, shortly before the race, had lost the services of Villoresi, Ascari and Farina. At the last moment, the car reputed to have been intended for Villoresi, was reluctantly given to Giovanni Bracco, an excellent road racer, on a par with Biondetti but similarly prone to leading a life characterised by debt and irregular behaviour.
Because of this, he set off under the assumption that he would have to pay cash for any spares and assistance he received from Ferrari during the race.
However, when he arrived in Bologna, leading the race by two minutes over Kling's Mercedes, Ferrari had a rather sudden change of heart. Bracco was given a much needed change of tyres by the Ferrari mechanics and went on to win the XIX Mille Miglia.         

In 1953 the FIA inaugurated the World Sports Car Championship for cars conforming to Appendix C of the International Sporting Code. It comprised seven qualifying events, five of these on circuits; the Sebring 12 hours, the Le Mans 24 hours,the Spa-Francorchamps 24hours, the Nurburgring 1000km and the Tourist trophy at Dundrod in Northern Ireland, and two on public roads,  the Mille Miglia and the Carrera Panamericana. The points scale was the same as that of the World Drivers' Championship: points were awarded to the first six places overall [8-6-4-3-2-1]. Points would be awarded only to the single leading car of each individual Marque in each race and the four best results for each Marque in the seven qualifying events would count toward the Championship.
Now that the Mille Miglia was a qualifying event for a World Championship it attracted 481 entrants and no less than six works teams all convinced they could achieve outright victory. 
In addition to Ferrari, Italy was represented by Alfa Romeo with its advanced 'Disco Volante' cars and Lancia which, on the strength of its many successes with the Aurelia, had created a racing team equipped with the technically refined D20's. Jaguar, by now monopolising Le Mans, and Aston Martin represented Great Britain while the Italfrance Scuderia entered two Gordinis. The only notable absentee was the American Cunningham, a surprise winner at Sebring.
The rivalry between Alfa Romeo and Lancia was not confined to to the Sorts/racing category but, on the contrary, was most intense in the up to 2000cc class of the Touring category where the works Alfa Romeo TI's were competing against the equally works Aurelia B22's, both high performance models built in limited numbers specifically for competition and consequently clearly in breach of the spirit of the rules governing the category.
There is not much point in dwelling on the unsportsmanlike controversies which consequently surfaced in the Giro di Sicilia that year, continued during the running of the Coppa della Toscana [another race created in the wake of the Mille Miglia] and which peaked during the Mille Miglia with the official abstention of Lancia and the withdrawal of their Aurelias in protest against the admission of the Alfas in the Touring category.
As if this was not bad enough, disputes emerged over the so-called X's which appeared at the last minute after the drawing of lots for starting places. Manufacturers would enter their works cars with their second driver listed as their no.1 with the co-driver listed as 'X'. This allowed them the freedom to allocate their crews according to the more or less favourable starting numbers drawn. 
It was not all bad news. The organisers paid considerable attention to safety and all competitors now had to wear crash helmets while, with the cooperation of the various Automobile Clubs along the route and the large numbers of police officers on duty during the race, the route was practically cleared of traffic. Nonetheless, article 11 of the race rules still obliged competitors to 'scrupulously obey the rules governing traffic on public roads in Italy'. 
Public information was also improved. In the Piazza della Vittoria there was a prominent display of the provisional rankings at the various checkpoints. This replaced the previous display in front of the Teatro Grande in the Corso Zanardelli. Two television crews, one Italian and one English, filmed the final stages of the race and a Bologna sports newspaper rented a light aircraft for aerial coverage.
The three works Alfas took the early lead with Consalvo Sanesi averaging 175kph from Brescia to Pescara- ahead of Farina's Ferrari and his own team mates Karl Kling and Juan Manuel Fangio. Kling was first at Rome after Sanesi retired but after Kling had an accident in Radicofani, Fangio took the lead followed by Giannino Marzotto this time resplendent in sports trousers and a comfortable cashmere pullover. When steering problems slowed Fangio on the home stretch the aristocrat from Valdagno drove to his second victory his Ferrari 250MM, Vignale spider, 4101 cc, finally beating the average record set by Biondetti in 1938 - over a different route and in decidedly more favourable weather conditions.

Tazio Nuvolari died in Mantua on 11th August, 1953. In memory of the great champion the Mille Miglia organisers once again decided to change the race route. It would now pass through Mantua during the final stage from Cremona to Brescia.
From now on a Nuvolari Grand Prix would be awarded to the fastest car on the final 132kms of the long straights that characterise the closing stretch. The route was now 1597 kms long - 10 kms shorter than the average Mille Miglia to date. It would not be changed again. Another important innovation was the elimination of the co-driver - justified by the reduction of race times to half compared to the first race in 1927.
Now that the race counted towards the World Sports Car Championship, works teams again participated but these only included Ferrari, Lancia, Aston Martin and a single Gordini.
The race became something of a Lancia procession in which Piero Taruffi raised the record for the Brescia-Pescara to over 177kph.
He reached Rome at an average speed of almost 159kph but between Rome and Viterbo mechanical trouble forced him to yield the lead to his team mate Alberto Ascari, who went on to win the race.

The number of starters rose to a new high of 521 - categorised by Castagneto into no fewer than twenty-six classifications, twelve official, twelve special [though official] and two arbitrarily added at the last minute.
While this policy may have paid off in commercial terms it began to create dissent among the three surviving founders of the Mille Miglia. Shortly before the race Canestrini wrote in favour of a return to the original number of only five classes and a reduction in the number of participants.
He also advocated an emphasis on quality over quantity and criticised what he saw as a demagogic tendency to change what was an important and historic race into the equivalent of a rural festival.  
As in 1931, Mercedes saved the day. By winning, it restored to the race the international status the Mille Miglia deserved but had somewhat begun to lose. But equal credit should go to the winning driver Stirling Moss and his navigator Denis Jenkinson for preparing a 'rolling map'  written on a five metre long paper roll placed on rollers in a box, the one roller feeding the paper onto another. During the race 'Jenks' progressively unwound the sheet and, using conventional hand signs, conveyed the detailed race route notes and instructions to Moss.
This ingenious method was adopted in preference to an intercom system devised by Mercedes which sometimes caused instructions not to be clearly heard and therefore to be misunderstood by the driver, absorbed as he was by driving the car.
This methodical preparation contributed to exceptional results; Moss won the race at a record average speed of 157.650kph breaking records for Brescia-Pescara [189.981kph], Brescia-Rome [173.050kph] as well as the 'Nuvolari Grand Prix' stretch from Cremona to Brescia [198.464kph]. As if this was not enough, Moss also won the index of performance, normally the preserve of smaller cc cars, once again prevailing over his team mate Fangio, second overall and over half an hour behind Moss at the finishing line in Brescia.
This was a total defeat of the Italian automobile industry; including in all classes where foreign cars participated. Particularly hard to swallow was the victory of Porsche over the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint in both the Grand Touring Class up to 1300cc and in the Sports/racing category up to 1500cc. Mercedes also won the Grand Touring Class in a car driven by the American John Fitch. However, it should be added that this was made easier because Ferrari had not yet managed to have its type 250 Berlinetta homologated as sports cars in time for the race. 

In1955, after the Mille Miglia had been run, the Le Mans 24 hour took place on 11th and 12th June.
At around 6.30 pm on the Saturday, during a hectic refuelling operation, Pierre Bouillon's works Mercedes 300SLR crashed into Lance Macklin's Austin Healey, and flew into the spectators who had crowded into the area to get a better view of what was taking place.
Bouillon lost his life along with 81 others. Mercedes continued to participate for the remainder of the season, winning the 1955 World Championship but at the end of the year it withdrew from competitive racing, having won the Formula One title with Juan Manual Fangio as its number one driver.
In 1956 Maserati, having managed to engage Stirling Moss, entered the Sports Car Championship as well as Formula One. Fangio moved to Ferrari, which had received a technical boost when Lancia withdrew from racing after the death of Alberto Ascari at Monza in 1955 and designer Vittorio Jano, together with Eugenio Castellotti, moved to Maranello. In 1956, Fangio won the World Driver's Championship for the fourth time despite having a car with capabilities that certainly had not improved - Ferrari designers continued to be under the thumb of the somewhat dictatorial Enzo Ferrari.
The Le Mans tragedy and the death of Ascari forced the Brescia organizers to renew their focus on safety and drivers now had to undergo a selection process. This was incorporated into the race regulations which, for the first time, stated:

 “Art. 7. –As per the CSAI norms currently in force, the Mille Miglia is reserved to invitees, to Italian drivers classified in the 1st and 2nd categories and to foreign drivers who, on the unchallengeable judgement of the organizers, have given proof of at least equal ability to Italian drivers of the 1st and 2nd categories. Only drivers of the 1st category can take the wheel of Racing Sports Cars over 2000 cc. In presenting their application, foreign drivers must list their rankings in races previously contended which conform to the above requirements. Since the race is limited to 400 starters, preference will be given to: a) Firms or Stables which manufacture automobiles; b) Members of the Mille Miglia Club who, to become such, have completed at least one Mille Miglia race; c) Competitors registered in categories and classes which are valid for the Italian Speed Championships. These requirements apply equally to the co-driver. In the application form both the group and cubic capacity of the competing car must be stated. Applications should be accompanied by the relative fee and will be examined by organizers, who reserve the right to accept or reject applications on the basis of the present article or to accept or reject applications without the right of appeal in those cases not covered by this article. If, following acceptance of an application, the applicant should decide to substitute drivers, make or cubic capacity of the vehicle, the application will be considered null and void. Where applications are not accepted, the fee will be reimbursed. Those admitted to the race, be they drivers or co-drivers, must be in possession of the international licence released by the Commissione Sportiva Automobilistica Italiana or by a foreign Automobile Club affiliated to the FIA Drivers must also present a valid driver’s licence for 1956. Applications indicated with the letter X or with pseudonyms will be rejected, unless the real name of the person in question has been communicated to the selection committee”.
The number of starters was reduced to 365 and the only works team other than Ferrari was Maserati, which entered three cars driven by Stirling Moss, Piero Taruffi and Cesare Perdisa.  There was a significant contingent of Mercedes Benz cars - no less than fourteen semi-works 300 SL's were entered with the clear aim of winning the Grand Touring category over the [finally homologated!] Ferrari 250GT Berlinettas, as well as to finish well up in the overall classification.
Eugenio Castellotti was drawn first among the Ferrari drivers and he had the hare's task of setting a blistering pace to force the rival cars to follow suit. Piero Taruffi took the lead between Ravenna and Forlì but wet brakes from heavy rain forced him to stop at Savignano on the Rubicon. The torrential rain favoured the closed cars and, in Pesaro, Wolfgang von Trips took the lead ahead of Castellotti and the Mercedes of Reiss. But he left the road in Pescara as did Moss in Antrodoco.
By Rome, the only threat to Ferrari was Reiss's Mercedes but he too was forced to slow down, eventually finishing tenth overall. Castellotti, a protege of Ascari, went on to win without coming close to beating Moss's record of the previous year over the same route.
The dreadful weather conditions, which lasted for the entire race, certainly slowed Castellotti - who tragically lost his life less than a year later during trials on the Modena circuit.
Following the depressing performance of the Italian automobile industry in 1955, honour was restored when, in addition to the Ferrari victory, Alfa Romeo's new Giulietta Sprint Veloce beat the Porsche 356 1300's and Osca did likewise to the Porsche 550 in the Sports car class up to 1500cc.

The limit on the number of starters was further reduced to 350 and the organizers again took steps to try to combat the unsportsmanlike tactics by which some competitors sought to negate the procedure of drawing lots for departure times/numbers.
These rather belated actions did not have the desired effect and, in the event, only 298 cars left the starting ramp in the Viale Venezia.
Even though the Mille Miglia continued to count for what was now called the World Sports Car Championship, reserved for Sports/racing cars, only Ferrari and Maserati entered works teams.  
Maserati had two 4.5 litre V8 [one for Stirling Moss and the other for Jean Behra], a brand new 12 cylinder 3500cc for Hans Hermann and a six cylinder for the Italian Giorgio Scarlatti.
Ferrari entered four Sports/Racing cars driven by Piero Taruffi, Peter Collins, Wolfgang von Trips and Alfonso de Portago the wealthy son of a Spanish potentate and an Irish governess, who was an international level swimmer, a polo player, an Olympic bobsledder at Cortina in 1956 [fourth place in a team of four] and overall winner of the Tour Auto in 1956 along with Edmund Gurner Nelson. 
Britain was represented by a single semi works Jaguar D Type entered by the Ecurie Ecosse for Ron Flockhart and a Cooper Jaguar which was not even expected to finish.
Then there was the fanciful Caballo de Hiero, constructed in the Untied States with a powerful six litre plus Chrysler engine  mounted on a rudimentary single seat chassis, designed for use on oval circuits such as Indianapolis.
Certain pre-race checks were absurdly imposed by Appendix C. These mandated a return to practices of thirty years previously when Sports/Racing Cars were required submit to scrutineering with raised  hood.  
Soon after the race started Maserati's hopes evaporated. Before this, Behra had not even made it to the starting line because of an accident during pre-race tests on an open road. Moss was forced to retire shortly after the start having rather dangerously snapped a brake pedal and Hermann did not get as far as the Ravenna checkpoint.
Victory then went to Taruffi and Ferrari, but in Guidizzola, less than forty kilometres from the finishing line, Alfonso de Portago's left front tyre blew and he went off the road killing himself, his co-driver Edmund Gurner Nelson and ten spectators.
Three days later the Italian Government decreed the end of the Mille Miglia and of all motor racing on Italian public roads.