BMW Classic at the 2009 Mille Miglia

A piece of BMW’s history, normally only on view at the BMW Museum has been rendered to race again especially for his year’s Mille Miglia event. We are talking here about the BMW 328 Mille Miglia Touring Coupe, overall winner of the 1940 event.

“On the one hand we want to express the high regard in which we hold the Mille Miglia,” says Karl Baumer, head of BMW Classic, “and on the other our aim is to show that the BMW Museum is no dead-end street, but that we also put historic vehicles back on the road for special occasions.”

This will not leave visitors of the Museum without the legendary racing coupé, because during its absence a faithfully reproduced replica will be standing in for the original.

As well as the Touring Coupé, several BMW 328 production models will be sent out onto the roads between Rome and Brescia, along with a range of BMW 328 Mille Miglia Roadsters and a BMW 328 Berlin-Rome Roadster.

The youngest BMW to make the journey from Munich to Italy will be a BMW 507 built in 1957.

From the beginning, Mille Miglia was considered as the ultimate challenge for drivers and cars alike. The road trial covering 1,000 miles gave the competitors the chance to prove their kills in motor sports and also in the automotive engineering.

It is now held in May of each year and has turned in a three-day event that attracts hundreds of thousands of spectators to the roadsides.

All vehicle models that participated in the classic Mille Miglia at least once between 1927 and 1957 are permitted to enter. That includes the BMW 328 and other models such as the BMW Isetta and BMW 507 – two models deployed by private competitors in the 1950s.

Each year BMW Classic dispatches a range of vehicles from its collection to the Mille Miglia start line, but private teams are also involved in the 1,000-mile event.