Detour #279: A Mini Miglia on the Futa Pass, Italy
As if the Futa and Raticosa passes of the Mille Miglia weren’t tough enough, Detour’s Nik Berg braves them in torrential rain. In Maserati’s MC20 supercar.
On its 1,000 mile route from Brescia to Rome and back there was one stretch of road that competitors in the Mille Miglia would fear the most. And it was for that very reason that, in 1955, Stirling Moss was determined to assert his dominance over the Apennines between Tuscany and Emilia Romagna.
In his report for Motorsport, co-driver Denis Jenkinson wrote: “Moss had really got the bit between his teeth, nothing was going to stop him winning this race, I felt; he had a rather special look of concentration on his face and I knew that one of his greatest ambitions was to do the section Florence-Bologna in under one hour. This road crosses the heart of the Apennines, by way of the Futa Pass and the Raticosa Pass, and though only just over 60 miles in length it is like a Prescott Hill-Climb all the way.”
Among the cars Moss and Jenks were leaving in the wake of their Mercedes-Benz 300SLR was the Maserati A6GCS driven by Francesco Giardini which would eventually finish fourth overall and first in the two-litre class.
Almost 70 years later and I find myself headed towards these infamous passes, also in a Maserati, with Google Maps making a decent fist of Jenks’ job, but I most certainly won’t be approaching the pace of those motor racing legends.
These are public roads for one, and for another the visibility is almost zero. The single-wiper blade of the MC20 sweeps frantically back and forth in a desperate bid to clear torrents of water. Meanwhile I’ve switched the car’s three-litre twin-turbocharged V6 motor into Wet mode to contain some of its 620 bhp.
Winding up from just above Florence, the SS65 only gets seriously sinewy at Santa Lucia, and my route to this point from Maserati’s Modena HQ has been mostly autostrada, and, up until now, dry. Yet as soon as the road demands absolute attention the heavens open and it’s a mission to see each corner as it approaches.
I take shelter at the military cemetery which holds the remains of over 30,000 German troops who attempted to hold the Gothic line in World War II. A striking monolith memorial towers over the graves and also marks the 900-metre high point of the Futa Pass. A less morbid pit stop can also be had at the nearby bar and restaurant.
Pressing on towards the Raticosa Pass there appear to be breaks in the cloud and, sure enough, the deluge soon stops and the road ahead has somehow remained untouched by the rain.
Cresting a rise and suddenly the valley below reveals itself, as do a series of glorious sweeping corners. It’s a rare chance to switch the MC20 into Corsa mode and get a little feel for the car’s amazing dynamic ability on this historic road. I can only imagine what it must have been like to take in its twists and turns at a full race pace, so I’ll hand over to Jenks once again.
“All the time l had found it very difficult to take my eyes off the road,” he wrote. “I could have easily looked around me, for there was time, but somehow the whole while that Moss was really dicing I felt a hypnotic sensation forcing me to live every inch of the way with him. At the top of the Futa Pass there were enormous crowds all waving excitedly and on numerous occasions Moss nearly lost the car completely as we hit patches of melted tar, coated with oil and rubber from all the other competitors in front of us, and for nearly a mile he had to ease off and drive at a bare eight-tenths, the road was so tricky.”