This year the Mille Miglia the most prestigious Italian road race was started by Stirling Moss driving the same historical Jaguar C-Type he drove in the 1952 Mille Miglia.
The Mille Miglia is now a three day historical race from Brescia to Roma via Ferrara and then back from Roma to Brescia and is 1000 miles in distance. It is not as competitive as the races of old which from 1927 – 1957 took the lives of 56 people before the event was eventually banned after two more fatal crashes. It was revived in 1982 to be the great annual race it now is and the chance to see some of the most famous historical cars in action in the Italian countryside.
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At the Mille Miglia this year this historical Jaguar being driven by Moss, now 82 years old. This was the Jaguar C-Type chassis number XKC 005 the car which Moss won in the Reims race. This was the first ever race car with disc brakes. Norman Dewis, co-driver back then was Jaguar’s chief development engineer. The 1952 became the first competitive race using the fangled disc brake system. During scrutineering before the race, officials had to be convinced that the disc brakes actually were brakes! That year the car retired with steering damage, but proved the ongoing use of disc brakes. In 1953 again at Le Mans Jaguar C-types equipped with disc brakes finished 1st, 2nd and 4th.
Sir Stirling Moss commented on the 1952 Mille Miglia: “The disc-brakes were incredible. Whereas the Ferrari and Mercedes could all brake once pretty well and then overheat, the Jaguar could repeatedly stop later and faster over and over again, and the Mille Miglia was the ultimate real world test.”
Norman Dewis also remembers the comments on the first disc brakes: “We got called into the scrutineers, and they’re looking around the car until they call us over and of course with the wire wheel you can clearly see behind the wheel, and the man says ‘Where is the brake? This car has no brakes!’ And I had to say ‘No, this is a new brake’, and we had to show them that they worked by jacking the car up and taking the wheel off to demonstrate. They were so interested.”
After the parade lap their car the C-type XKC 005 joined the other five Jaguar Heritage Racing entries in this year’s Mille Miglia for the start of the event with its official crew. There were five more entries from Jaguar Heritage Racing, two more C-types (XKC 018, first owned by Juan Manual Fangio, and XKC 045), a Mk VII saloon, and both roadster and fixed-head examples of the XK 120.
Support teams were following the heritage entries in the latest examples of the Jaguar range, the XF, XJ and XKR-S . All the Jaguar models sharing the same ethos of design and engineering innovation following on from the early days of the Moss and Dewis experience 60 years ago.
The 2012 Mille Miglia is the first competitive team outing for the Jaguar Heritage Racing programme. These works-backed C-type and D-types can also be seen racing competitively for the first time since 1956 at both the Nürburgring Oldtimer Grand Prix and the Goodwood Revival
The 2012 Mille Miglia Jaguar Heritage Racing works-entry comprises:
- C-type (chassis: XKC 005, registration: MDU 212)
- C-type (chassis: XKC 018, registration: 70 XVK)
- C-type (chassis: XKC 045, registration: NDU 289 )
- Mk VII (registration: LHP 5)
- XK 120 OTS (registration: OOF 748)
- XK 120 fixed-head (registration: LWK 707)
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