[Ray Bell]

So, at the thirteenth attempt, 52-year-old Piero Taruffi scored a great victory in this the 24th Mille Miglia, bringing his 4.1-litre Ferrari over the finishing line at Brescia alongside that of Von Tripps, who had started three minutes ahead of him, to secure first and second places for Ferrari. Third place was taken by Gendebien in a 3-litre Gran Turismo Ferarri coupe. it was a well-earned victory for skill, endurance, courage and persistence after years of disappointments during which he has repeatedly led as far as Rome and established records for long sections of the course, only to be cheated by mechanical failure. He has now won the four most difficult road events, the Targa Florio, Tour of Sicily, the Panamericana and the Mille Miglia, and after 33 years of racing has promised his wife he will do no more, but he does not rule out some more attempts on speed records in the cars he designs himself.

Victory celebrations were quickly muted when word came in from Giudizzolo, about 18 miles from the finish, that Portago had crashed when in fourth place.

On the straight, at about 180mph, a tyre burst for reasons which are still not clear. The car veered off the road, uprooted a massive granite marker stone, then flew through the air, snapping off a telegraph pole, and cutting to pieces spectators at the roadside who were pressing forward, regardless of danger, to see the cars pass. Annihilating its crew as it went, it bounced into one ditch, then hurtled across the road into the ditch on the opposite side. The Marquis de portago, his passenger, Eddie nelson, and nine spectators, of whom five were children, died, and several injured.

The incident unleashed a new storm of criticism against Italy's greatest long distance road race. Criticism was directed mainly against the organisers, regardless of the fact that the spectators thrust themselves into danger with a complete disregard for their own safety all along the course. There is enormous nation-wide enthusiasm for the race, but it is now generally agreed that the public must be protected against their own folly and if it is held again at all, the Mille Miglia can only survive in modified form.

Just under 300 cars started the race and only 172 finished. Among the many brilliant achievements in this fast, furious, dangerous and exhausting race, for both men and machines, here are a few that merit special mention. Maglioli's fifth place in the porsche Spyder winning the 1500cc class with a lead of 30 mins over the next car, also a Porsche, Thiele's win at 73.27 mph with the tiny Abarth Zagato coupe in the 750-cc Gran Turismo class beat Vidilles winning time in the DB in the 850-cc class by 15 minutes. Only three seconds behind Vidilles came Paul Frere in a Renault Dauphine saloon to win the 1000-cc special touring car category at the astounding average of 71.9 mph for nearly 1000 miles. In fact, Frere's Dauphine was the second fastest saloon car in the race, beating Mercedes, 1900 Alfas, DS 19 Citroens and Sunbeams. only faster saloon car was another French car, De Langenester's amazing Peugeot 203, which averaged 73.11 mph to win the 1300cc special touring class.

In a crash at Florence, the Dutch driver Gottingens was killed when his Triumph hit a tree. Two British women drivers, Sheila Van Damm (Sunbeam) and Nancy Mitchell (Triumph TRS) crashed without injury.

Punctuation in this article has been left as published, some spelling errors also. But the colour of the story is left to shine on through....

Timbo, you just entered into a different world!

Sadly, it no longer exists.