General requirements

Not easy to qualify for Millemiglia! Your car will need to be in pristine condition and also look great to be able to be seen in the astonishing Italian landscapes, racing for – as the name Millemiglia says – a thousands miles. Start and arrival are always in Brescia, but the route changes each year. Since the youngest car allowed to join is from 1957 and many are older, there has to be one way to put them all at the same level. The competition, therefore, is about precision. Your copilot will need to study the map carefully and guide you through all timings and rules.

And what is the cost? To join, 10’000 Euro. But of course one needs to add the expenses for the car, repair and maintenance: cars break down all the time and need to be followed constantly by mechanics or vans for assistance.

What’s So Beautiful?

This year covid still caused some changes to the general Millemiglia organisation and, in order to avoid big gatherings in the beautiful city centre, Brescia used different areas of the city outskirts as meeting points. But apart from that, the rest was spectacular. One beautiful car after the other, the occasional celebrity driver, people standing in the heat to be able to see from close and shout comments, leather gloves around steering wheels, matching pilots, beautiful women, enthusiastic kids, elegant tree-lined roads, beautiful medieval churches, wonderful loud noise from engines, tight streets, panoramic points, black smoke out of exhausts like in the old times, waving flags, cars out of museums, roaring sprints in tunnels, groups of policemen and carabinieri escorting drivers and allowing normally forbidden speeds, cheering grandmothers saying che bella macchina! or preparing pic-nics for their grandchildren.

It’ impossible to resist the charm: if you are grumpy or bored, go to the Millemiglia. You’ll be back with a smile, and you’ll see what it is the most beautiful race in the world.