1928 was the year of Alfa Romeo’s first win at the Mille Miglia, and 2018 has seen a record-breaking edition with 450 teams competing and Alfa Romeo cars taking the top three places – confirmation of the brand’s unbreakable bond with “the most beautiful race in the world”. Alfa Romeo played a key role in this prestigious milestone event as Automotive Sponsor, and also ran out as winner of the top prizes on Viale Venezia in Brescia, with the 2018 Mille Miglia being won by the Alfa Romeo 6C 1500 GS Testa Fissa crewed by Tonconogy-Ruffini.

In second place, just eight penalty points behind the winner was the stunning 1928 6C 1500 Super Sport with coachwork by Stabilimenti Farina, an official car from the FCA Heritage collection, which is normally on display at the Museo Storico Alfa Romeo. The car carried race number 30, also borne by its sister which recorded Alfa Romeo’s first victory in the Mille Miglia with Giuseppe Campari and Giulio Ramponi in 1928. It was driven in this year’s event by Giovanni Moceri, with navigator Daniele Bonetti. Giovanni Moceri is current holder of the Italian Grandi Eventi ACI Sport Champion title and already has victories in Italy’s biggest historic regularity competitions to his name, from the Mille Miglia to the Targa Florio and the Coppa d’Oro delle Dolomiti. In third place was the Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 SS Zagato driven by Vesco-Guerini.
It was on April 1, 1928 that Giuseppe Campari and Giulio Ramponi recorded their victory with the 6C 1500 Super Sport, one of Vittorio Jano’s masterpieces, and unbeatable thanks to its revolutionary mechanical design, including a fixed head and a supercharged engine. This extraordinary car covered the 1,618 km course at a remarkable average speed of 84 km/h, to record the first of Alfa Romeo’s 11 victories – 7 of them in consecutive years – from 1932 to 1938: a record which can now never be beaten.
To re-create the full atmosphere of the epic feats achieved by daring men on the dusty roads of the past, the Museo Storico Alfa Romeo in Arese (Milan) is hosting the “11 volte campione” (11 times champion) exhibition from May 19, 2018. The exhibition, which will remain open until December 2018, will be open to visitors every day from 10 am to 6 pm (closed on Tuesdays).
Inaugurated on June 24, 2015, the fascinating Museo Storico Alfa Romeo – known as “The Time Machine” – is the heart of a real brand centre and was created by architect Benedetto Camerana’s major upgrading project, which brings together the brand’s past, present and future. As well as the area displaying the key models from the Alfa Romeo historic collection, the site is buzzing and vibrant, with the Archive, internal circuit, event spaces, the Alfa Romeo Café and a showroom with delivery area.
Marcus Ericsson and Charles Leclerc, drivers for the Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team, were also present, driving a 1932 Gran Premio Tipo B and a 1955 750 Competizione. Their participation is evidence of how indelibly the racing world is engraved in the Alfa Romeo DNA.
“I was very happy to take part in the Mille Miglia,” said Marcus Ericsson. “It is such an iconic event and it was a special experience for me to attend it for the first time. Representing Alfa Romeo at this kind of event is something I am very proud of, and it was a great pleasure to see all of the historical cars there and drive an historical Alfa Romeo.”
“It was a great honour for me to participate in an event as historical as the Mille Miglia,” said Charles Leclerc. “I have a huge passion for cars, and especially for historical cars, and really enjoyed seeing some of them at this event. It was great fun to drive the Stelvio Quadrifoglio through the city of Milan on this special occasion and also a classic Alfa Romeo.”
The celebratory visit to the Museo Storico Alfa Romeo at Arese was a fitting tribute to the Italian brand which has done more than any other to embed the Brescia classic in the collective imagination.
Alongside the classic rarities was a fleet of 30 Giulia and Stelvio cars which the brand made available to the organisers as the official vehicles for the 2018 Mille Miglia – there could be no better proof of the strength of the bond that links the cars of the past to those being built today.
Travelling on board these models is an original way of experiencing the race and at the same time discovering the Alfa Romeo racing legend, and even more exciting in the Stelvio Quadrifoglio or Giulia Quadrifoglio, the finest expressions of the new Alfa Romeo generation and adorned with the mythical badge awarded to the Italian brand’s highest-performing cars ever since 1923.