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The revived Milan - San Remo Classic Car
Rally passes through Southern Piedmont and provides a rolling museum of
exceptional historic vehicles.
More information ?
If you would like more information please call me on:-
0039 0141 851 154
or send me an email,
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keep in touch, please fill in and
send us the form on the Registration page.
We look forward to hearing from you.
© Kerrie Barker 2007
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 The motoring season opens in Italy in early
March with the revival of the historic car rally from Milan to San Remo, a
distance of over 400 kilometres. First held in 1906, it combined motor
racing, sportsmanship, elegance and of course some showing off for the
Italian public, who loved it passionately.
The original race was able to continue until
1973 when increased traffic made it impractical.
It was revived as a spectacle in 2003, and
today is an accepted part of the international classics calendar. Promoted
and sponsored by the Automobile Club of Milan, this year 158 cars of
exceptional quality took part in creating a rolling museum, with drivers
from 15 countries taking part, including several from Great Britain.
Casa della Fontana
and Wisteria Cottage provide excellent
bases from which to make a trip to observe much of the proceedings, whether
at one of the formal city centre ‘set pieces’, where the cars are displayed
statically, or at any point along the route.
Celebrity entrants include famous Italian
businessmen, singers, actors, models, television and sports personalities,
and supporters include the Alfa Romeo Museum, which enters several cars.
Participants can opt to take part in competitive regularity trials over
certain sections of the route, or follow the route as tourists, taking time
out for coffees and photography. The event is superbly marshalled with
considerable assistance from the Italian police, who also enter vehicles of
their own from the Museo delle Polizia !
To be eligible, cars must have been built
between 1906 and 1973, the years of the original rally. Most of these cars
are celebrities too. Amongst this year’s entrants were a 1927 Hispano Suiza formerly owned by Peter Ustinov, the 1953
Lancia Aurellio donated by Lancia dealers to Italian world champion cyclist
Fausto Coppi and a 1929 Aston Martin
which won at Brooklands the same year.
The event proper starts at the famous Monza
race track on Friday morning where cars are able to lap the track, then
after lunch they are escorted in convoy, usually through heavy traffic,
to Milan’s beautiful Piazza Del Duomo for public display.
 On Saturday the cars roll out from the
Piazza Del Duomo and cross the flat
Lombardy plain to
reach Alessandria around 10.15am. Here they pass right through the city
centre, before heading off to
Monterotondo for
luncheon, near the famous wine town of Gavi, and the start of the hills.
After lunch the rally
crosses the Ligurian mountains
over the high
Scoffera Pass and along the road at Monte Fasce, with spectacular views over
the sea, heading to
Genoa (this part of the route varies
from year to year) for a further public presentation and then overnight
stop.
On Sunday
there is a
brief run along the motorway
before encountering the Passo dello Turchino and the Passo del Faiallo,
tortuous mountain roads, then down to the coast at
Spotorno
before the lunch break at Final Borgo, and then the final coast run through
the villages and towns of the Riviera of Flowers to the finish in San Remo
itself, arriving at about 4.30pm.
 The event is a gruelling challenge for the
cars which have to cope with racetrack circuits, traffic jams, narrow
mountain passes and short stretches of motorway, as well as day to day
Italian driving. It is also gruelling for the drivers, especially of open
vehicles if the weather is inclement – it is still possible to encounter fog
and snow. They also have to cope with three successive gala dinners.
This year, we watched the cars navigate
through central Alessandria, then up the narrow winding road outside Gavi
and at the luncheon break at the Montorotondo resort.
This link will takes you to our rally
photogallery.
The official rally website at
www.milano-sanremo.it
has pages in English, including a full list of participating vehicles and
their drivers, and some photographs and videos of the event.
E mail:
kerrie@anitalianadventure.co.uk
0039 0141 851 154
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