2010 Monaco Historics and Mille Miglia
For those motor heads whose interest is vintage motor racing, two of the most prominent European venues are the Monaco Historics and the Mille Miglia.

This year my wife, Sheila, and I had the opportunity to attend both of these events as part of an organized tour, which was conducted by Steve Austin’s Great Vacations.

The neat thing about such a tour is that everything is really done first class, and we were accompanied by two guest race driver and television commentator hosts: Brian Redman and Alain de Cadenet. Needless to say, we were not at a loss for amazing stories and excellent explanations of cars, drivers and racing.

Our tour started with our flight from Houston to Frankfurt and then a connecting flight to Nice. For those contemplating a European trip and using frequent flyer miles, Frankfurt is an excellent destination, because it is not as requested as London or Paris.

Our Monaco portion of the tour consisted of visits to the Bonham’s and RM Auction venues, a tour of the pits conducted by Brian Redman and Alain de Cadent and, of course, watching the vintage races.

A very special addition to our tour schedule was an invitation to attend a reception for the launch of Sir Jackie and Helen Stewart’s book: Collage, Jackie Stewart’s Grand Prix Album. The reception was held at the Hotel de Paris and was hosted by Prince Albert of Monaco. The venue was amazing as was the opportunity to visit with Jackie Stewart and Prince Albert.

One of the other things that was special about attending the Monaco Historics was the suite we used. We watched the race from the F1 McLaren Suite, which was located right at the start/finish line.

Another highlight was the food service for the suite, which was catered by the famous Paris delicatessen and caterer, Fauchon.

After Monaco, our group did some sightseeing along the Italian Ligurian coast, stopping at Portofino, Camogli and the Cinque Terre towns. These are all picture post card places that were a lot of fun to see.

Then we were off to Maranello to tour the Ferrari Galleria and the Maserati Collection museum.

We then drove to our Lake Garda hotel, where we stayed for the Mille Miglia.

The next day we traveled to Brescia and walked around the city squares where the Mille Miglia entry cars were parked and also toured the Mille Miglia Museum.

We were also able to get passes into the Mille Miglia scrutineering area to watch all the cars arrive to be checked out prior to the race.

After a short dinner break, we returned to Brescia to watch the start of the race, which was preceded by the parade of 100 significant Ferraris.

We then watched a total of 375 Mille Miglia entries cross the start line and roar off through the streets of Brescia on their way to the 1,000 mile run to Rome and back.

This year was very special in that the winner of the 1940 Mille Miglia, a BMW 328 Touring Coupe, won the race 70 years later. A second BMW 328 also took third place in the event.

After our organized tour, my wife and I then went on to Stuttgart for some additional car related touring. In one of our better moves, we ended up renting a small Mercedes four-door hatchback (B 180) from Avis, which was equipped with navigation. This was a true life saver driving around Stuttgart.

We were able to effectively get to all our destinations (Porsche Museum, Mercedes Museum, Mercedes Classic Center and Kienle Restoration). We also attended the Stuttgart Spring Fest, the Stuttgart version of the Munich Octoberfest, which was amazing.

Our first stop was the Porsche Museum.

It opened in January 2009 and was built at a cost of $50 million with 80+ car displays and 200 exhibits. The museum has an exceptional restaurant, Restaurant Christophorus, where we enjoyed an excellent lunch.

Two of the more significant displays in the museum is a large group of iconic Porsche 917’s and a separate display of 911 Turbos that all rotate on their individual turntables.

Not to be out done, the Mercedes Museum is significantly larger in scale with 160+ cars and 1,500 exhibits. The facility opened in 2006 and was constructed at a cost of $150 million and it shows.

We were able to purchase an English language tour along with our normal admission, which was great because there were only four people on our hour long tour.

The most spectacular exhibit in the museum is a collection of race cars positioned in a racetrack configuration. Every few minutes, a car is spotlighted and an audio track begins with the car starting up, racing around the perimeter of the museum and then returning to its original starting place.

 

The following day, we visited the Mercedes Classic Center in Fellbach, where Mercedes classic cars are restored as well as bought and sold.

We ended up getting a two-hour private tour of the Classic Center from the new head of the Center, Florian Zimmermann. We toured the restoration shop and the garages where they keep all the cars for the Mercedes Museum including the Formula 1 racecars of Louis Hamilton.

The next day we visited Kienle Restoration, where we saw a number of great Mercedes cars under restoration including a number of 300Sls.

The trip to Monaco, the Mille Miglia and Stuttgart was a five-star opportunity to see some of the best of car guy-related activities on the continent and is one trip that will not soon be forgotten.

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