David Katz heads to Italy for th enewst darling of the vintage-tour calendar, Louis Vuitton's Italia Classica. Photos by the author and Louis Vuitton.
To some, the dream is the Mille Miglia Storica. That event is an exercise in flogging the finest vintage racecars from Brescia to Rome and back through the Italian spring’s rain and fog, and it’s one in which there’s precious little time left over for relaxing, socializing and car-swapping.
But to others, taking a similar caliber of car on a rather less frenetic sweep up and down Tuscany is better suited to their tastes—particularly when it’s interspersed with plenty of time to sip the local wines, eat incredible meals, swap rides and gawk at the centuries-old scenery. You still get to drive as fast as you want in this venue, but the folks at Louis Vuitton figured the allure of the Chianti Hills and Elba during vendemmia—the grape harvest season—would make their Italia Classica plenty tough to resist. They were right.
Day One
Dawn broke over the Borgo San Felice Hotel to reveal 60 mouthwatering machines, including some particularly delicious Alfa Romeos from that firm’s glorious prewar racing past—a 1935 Tipo C GP team car once driven by Nuvolari, for example, and a brace of supercharged 8Cs. Also soaking in the early-morning rain were a Le Mans-veteran Aston Martin Speed Six; two Bugatti GP racers (including another ex-Nuvolari car); ten Ferraris, ranging from a works 166MM and 225 Sport Vignale to a TdF-veteran 250SWB; a pair of gorgeous HWM-Jaguars; and an Invicta S-type. Jaguar also came off well represented, with no less than seven C-type Jags (including the first-place car from Le Mans ’53, handled here by winning driver Duncan Hamilton’s son Adrian), an ex-Moss/Walker D-type and the last lightweight E-type produced. A Lancia Flaminia Sport Zagato also made the trip, as did a Maserati A6GCS and an ex-Moss 250S Mille Miglia vet. As for American machinery, a GT40 came in from England, and a German couple brought what may have been the most coveted entrant of all—a 1923 Miller 122 Indy car.
Like the Mille Miglia, the Italia Classica is run with assistance from Italy’s finest, whose blue Alfa police cars only appeared when traffic impeded and never to slow the drivers down. Just about everyone was pleased with this, particularly the event’s coordinator; he’d been loaned a steel-blue Ferrari 456GT by the people at Fiat, Louis Vuitton’s co-sponsor.
My own ride for Day One was the 1962 Lancia Flaminia Zagato Sport originally campaigned by Elio Zagato himself. As my navigator, Christine, struggled valiantly to keep the windshield from completely fogging over, I began to appreciate the Lancia’s outstanding wet-weather handling. And, while water did cascade in around the dash during some particularly heavy deluges, we felt we could hardly complain—all around us were far braver souls, such as the Bergs in their American Miller. As they passed us the first morning, their four fenderless wheels sent up 15-foot roostertails of spray.
Heading north towards Florence, the heaviest rain continued into the mountains as far as Vallombrosa Abbey, a 16th-century monastery where 20 acolytes continue a tradition of austerity practiced by their order for a thousand years. Beyond Vallombrosa, visibility improved enough to see the vast olive orchards at the foot of the Pratomagno mountains as we headed to I Bonsi, a magnificent family-owned villa that served as our first meal stop.
The afternoon stage carried the rally through the hills of eastern Tuscany. Running parallel to the Arno River, we rediscovered the charm of driving between perfect rows of centuries-old cypress; these stretches were broken only by ancient towns, golden hills and miles of vineyards and olive groves, just as it had been the last time I was here some 25 years earlier. One particularly glorious tree-lined byway led to the castle of Il Calcione in Lucignano, where the gentleman owner—who actually ran the Mille Miglia himself back in the ’30s—greeted the participants and answered questions about the turreted medieval castle that has been in his family since 1483. From there, the route looped back around through the Chianti Hills, eventually returning to Siena and San Felice for the night.
Day Two
Day Two pointed the tour northwest, up through the heart of Tuscany and towards the ancient walled city of San Gimignano; my transportation for this leg would be a fly-yellow Ferrari 355 convertible on loan from the factory. (Yes, it’s a tough job....) After the first transit stage, the entrants had just enough time for a brief walk around San Gimignano before mounting up again and driving through another beautiful landscape of cypresses, orchards, churches and stone farmhouses to the 14th-century villa of Marquis Pucci, where a long room surrounded by huge vats of wine hosted our meal. As idyllic as the Marquis’ retreat might have been, though, it wasn’t long before a symphony of idling race engines broke the silence once more. Soon "my" F355 was shadowing a half-dozen vintage racecars over hill and down dale, this time heading for the walled city of Volterra.
The Volterrans themselves were there to cheer our arrival and welcome us down the cobblestone alleyways and into the main piazza. From that moment until we swept back out of town, the Italia Classica was surrounded by a cheering throng—for a few moments at least, it seemed like a real 1950s roadrace. This was also the afternoon I was able to swap the F355 for a ride in an unusually original 1953 C-Type. This particular car was actively raced for nearly a decade, racking up track starts from Geneva, Barcelona and Montlhéry to Agadir and Marrakesh. Words can’t do justice to the melodious roar of the Jag’s side exhausts, nor the incredibly joyous feeling I got from peering through the Plexiglass windshield as we chased Adrian Hamilton’s Le Mans winner south toward the ocean. Soon a whole pack of vintage Jags fell into our wake, and we held that formation all the way to Piombino—our ferry port to Elba.
Most likely, the 60+ cars of the Italia Classica were the most precious cargo the giant Elba ferry ever held. The 45-minute voyage takes tourists to the site of Napo-lean’s famous exile, but it was also very nearly the final resting place for a number of our participants. The rally’s drivers, a bit too eager to disembark, fired up their engines long before the ferry docked; the resulting exhaust fumes filled up the hold and nearly asphyxiated everyone!
Day Three
Elba: My first daytime view revealed a string of sandy beaches and the city of Portoferraio, the old port where we’d landed the night before. This day’s wheels would be none other than the rally-prepped ’66 Mustang that co-starred with Trintignant in A Man and a Woman. Sure, the handling of this genuine movie icon might not have been as crisp as some of its smaller European counterparts’, but after flinging it through a corner, the V8’s surplus ponies evened the playing field. Though some of the Europeans looked at the relatively crude Ford with a mixture of disdain and curiosity, it didn’t take long behind the wheel to understand the success these bulletproof cars enjoyed on Europe’s tougher rallies.
It also didn’t take long to realize that if you’re going to be exiled, Elba ain’t a bad place to go. Today the island is mostly populated with tourists, and with good reason. It offers endless spectacular vistas from its rugged, high seacliffs, an array of sandy and stony beaches, gentle hillsides and inviting, verdant mountains lined and rich olive groves and vineyards.
All of them, of course, are connected by fantastic, winding driver’s roads. But as much as I enjoyed tackling these in the "Moostang" (as the French called it), I did bail out of it in a heartbeat when my shameless begging for a ride in the Miller finally paid off: "My wife has taken pity on you," said owner Eckart Berg.
An incredible 45-minute blast ensued, giving me a firsthand look at the fabled Miller mystique. The Type 122’s engine generates gobs of power and locomotive-like torque, and despite its close ratios the gearbox will still pull 60 mph in first. At speed, a delirious mechanical whine climbs with the revs, and the power builds so rapidly that the Miller could blow by whole lines of cars in one pass. It also nimbly handled the tightest corners of the coastline—an astounding feat for any car, let alone one built in 1923. Additionally, I gained new respect for anyone riding in the mechanic’s seat of this car—the slightly rearward chair is so small and cramped that serious contortions were required to avoid blocking the driver’s access to the hand-operated fuel pump. Otherwise, the Indy car’s only weaknesses seemed to be its fade-prone brakes and a susceptibility to overheating in traffic—just what you’d expect, considering the type of racing it was designed for.
After my Miller morning I returned to the Moostang, and later that afternoon the route took us to the Marina di Campo airport for a "Surprise Grand Prix." This proved to be an ersatz combination of a gymkhana and a 3-legged race. (Somehow ping-pong balls also got involved toward the end.) All in all, it was probably just a fun excuse to hand out Louis Vuitton bags to all the participants. Another gala dinner that night was washed down with a range of Elba wines, and after a suitable span of dancing and talking cars, we turned in for the last run home.
Day Four
For me, the final drive back to Sienna may have been the most exciting of the event. From the ferry landing at Piombino I caught a ride in a competition-spec 1960 Ferrari 250SWB, which gobbled up great expanses of blacktop in chasing after another Englishman’s yellow ’58 Testa Rossa. An hour later I was ensconced in a diminutive Maserati A6GCS—a luscious little jewel of a car that was driven almost flat-out as we chased an amazing 350-horse Alfa Tipo C Grand Prix car up hills, through valleys and down long straights. Most experts agree that Alfa’s early-’30s racecars—particularly the Tipo C—had it all: power, handling, finesse and reliability. Just trying to keep up with one of these mighty machines proved enormously exhilarating, particularly in a Maserati nearly 20 years its junior!
Ultimately, the chase came to an end at our lunch stop in Castello Banfi, an 11th-century fortress hard by the medieval town of Montalcino. Then a rapid dash back to Borgo San Felice, a quick change into formalwear and off to the opera: The Louis Vuitton folks don’t go in for half-measures.
Finally, it all began to sink in—sipping wine, listening to the aria, gazing at the event’s most elegant cars picked out by floodlights.... What we had in the Italia Classica was nothing less than a soul-stirring tribute to legendary Italian passions. Ca bella magnefico!
Day Two pointed the tour northwest, up through the heart of Tuscany and towards the ancient walled city of San Gimignano; my transportation for this leg would be a fly-yellow Ferrari 355 convertible on loan from the factory. (Yes, it’s a tough job....) After the first transit stage, the entrants had just enough time for a brief walk around San Gimignano before mounting up again and driving through another beautiful landscape of cypresses, orchards, churches and stone farmhouses to the 14th-century villa of Marquis Pucci, where a long room surrounded by huge vats of wine hosted our meal. As idyllic as the Marquis’ retreat might have been, though, it wasn’t long before a symphony of idling race engines broke the silence once more. Soon "my" F355 was shadowing a half-dozen vintage racecars over hill and down dale, this time heading for the walled city of Volterra. 