In search of the Targa Florio, part one

June 11, 2012

Under a hot Sicilian sun, I parked the little Fiat 500 on a patch of pure history. This spot in the Madonie Mountains used to mark the start of the legendary Targa Florio—the very first and very last of the great road races. From 1906 to 1973, interrupted only by wars, it was one of the most important events in the auto-racing calendar. In its final form the circuit covered almost 45 miles of narrow, mountainous public roads and 567 turns.

In 1919, a young Enzo Ferrari drove his first race here, and in 1924 the designer of the winning Mercedes drove one of the cars himself. His name was Ferdinand Porsche, and his co-driver was one Alfred Neubahr who later went on to manage the legendary Silver Arrows. All of these men would have a long relationship with the Targa.

For fans of Daimler-Benz, the 1955 running of the Targa Florio stands out. The year 1955 was a year of euphoria and despair at Daimler-Benz. Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson had the most famous Mille Miglia win ever in the beautiful 300SLR. But a disaster at Le Mans, where Pierre Levegh's 300SLR plunged into the grandstand killing more than 80 people, led to Daimler-Benz's withdrawal from the race soon after, the termination of its racing program.

After Le Mans, there was one last race to be run, and the championship depended on it—the 1955 Targa Florio. Of the seven built, only six open-cockpit 300SLRs remained.Mercedes entered five of them in the Targa. Among the factory drivers were Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio. Moss would bring a battered car to victory closing a glorious chapter in Mercedes world championship history.

It is easy to forget that at one time, the World Sports Car Championship and the series that succeeded it were as popular and as well-covered as Formula One. The Targa Florio attracted the greatest drivers and cars in the world. Throughout its life it was the biggest day in Sicily, with hundreds of thousands of people jamming every vantage point to see their heroes—usually driving Ferraris. The great British journalist Jenkinson wrote at the time:

“To see a red works Ferrari go charging up the main street of a Sicilian village in the early morning, raising dust and sending chickens and cats scuttling down side alleys, accompanied by the waving and shouting of a very partisan crowd is really to see the Targa Florio under way.”

It was a brutally tough race on car and driver. Period video footage shows now-priceless cars with multiple dents and parts missing, taped together to finish the race. The film of the 1965 race shows a 250GTO with significant frontal damage, the driver incapable of imagining that a similar car would be sold for $35 million in 2012. However, despite minimal safety precautions there were only six fatalities in the long life of the race, the lowest number of fatalities among any of the old major road races.

I walked around the empty buildings near the old starting line, now surrounded by chain-link fencing. It's quiet now, barely a car in sight, the stands and pits locked and abandoned. Behind the fence sits a lonely bust of Vincenzo Florio, who founded the race in 1906. A large sign denotes the historic race.

This once was a center of frantic preparation, cheering fans and fierce competition. Cars left on a timed start as in a rally, but with the smallest cars leaving first. Driving down the narrow road, it was hard to imagine how the fastest cars of their era took off flat-out on a bumpy, narrow track that had no safety margin. Instead, there were jumps, hairpins and sections that ran right through the narrow village streets along the way.

Driving through the streets of Cerda, Colesano and Campofelice now, with their densely parked cars and homes and shops built directly on the street, I was filled with awe at the skill of the drivers who piloted their sports cars through cheering crowds only feet away, the racing-oil smell and the scream of the engines filling the old streets. Practice was done on open roads with the ever-present threat of sheep, pedestrians or regular traffic.

Each village has a museum to the Targa Florio, the best of which is in Colesano, and there are frequent memories of the race. Also in Colesano, a series of mosaics depicts the great cars and drivers in action on race day.

Race day was like a huge national holiday in Sicily, with people lining the route, picnics and wine everywhere, old men playing cards and fans sitting along the unprotected walls. For drivers it is a memory circuit with no time to relax. It favors light, small cars. This was where Porsche and Ferrari had a long-running battle for supremacy and where both manufacturers brought a wide variety of cars over the years.

Ferrari raced everything from the 250GTO and the Testa Rossa to the P4 and the 512S, while Porsche ran the 550, the RS 60 and 61, the 904, the Carrera 6, the 907, the 908 and the 910. Porsche won it 11 times, more than any other manufacturer, and Ferrari won seven times. If the major entrants to the Targa were auctioned off all at once, the event would surely be among the biggest sales in history.

Outside of the villages there is almost no traffic today. Occasionally, it is possible to see large sections of the looping road below as you climb. The road surface is treacherous now, with major subsidence, cracked roads and poorly patched sections. There are innumerable blind corners and sudden drops. In some areas, anything more than 5 km/h would be foolhardy. Toward the end of the track is a six-kilometer arrow-straight section, longer than the Mulsanne straight, that could be taken flat out. This meant that some cars had to have a set of relatively short lower gears paired with longer top gears to deal with the tight turns on most of the track and the long straight.

There were two men who were stunningly fast here and who knew every one of the 567 corners. Each of them was a formidable, long track driver. I recently had the chance to talk with each of them—Vic Elford and Nino Vaccarella—about what the Targa Florio was like in its heyday. In part two, we'll hear what they had to say.

By Ronan McGrath