Few car races have a name as mythical as the Mille Miglia has. Between 1927 and 1957, the race took place 24 times, becoming one of the best known and most important endurance street races worldwide with lots of influence on the Gran Turismo racing. The trademark of the race, a red Arrow with white ‘Mille Miglia’ in it still remains the inalienable sign for the race that started in Brescia, went to Rome to return to Brescia and cover this way a 1000 miles.
Typical for the race was that the start numbers of the cars was the time they started the race, this way it was immediately clear to the spectators how long the cars were driving and who overtook other cars. After 1957 the race turned into a rally, as the racing on the normal roads became way too dangerous.
One of the competitors of the last real Mille Miglia as a road-race was the Dutch Carel Godin de Beaufort, only 23 years old at the time. Frits van Someren, the author of this book, had access to the archives of Carel Godin de Beaufort, and found lots of interesting documents and pictures of the 1957 Mille Miglia. Together with articles in period newspapers and magazines, and the official Mille Miglia timetables, he managed to reconstruct the race of the young Dutchman in his Porsche 356.
Frits van Someren, who has strong connections to the de Beaufort family after his research for a biography on Carel Godin de Beaufort, heard stories of Carels sister Cornelie, who told him numerous stories of the race and her personal experiences in Brescia in 1957.
Reading the book is so much fun, because it brings you back into the time. It feels as if you were in a time capsule and brought back to 1957.
A strong recommendation to get the book in your library
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Carel Godin de Beaufort and the last Mille Miglia
Biography & Autobiography
www.caldona.nl
144 pages, 50 images (black /white & Color)
