JD Classics – one of the world’s leading classic car specialists – has launched its teaser Mille Miglia film, giving viewers a taste of ‘The Most Beautiful Race in the World’. As a gold sponsor of the event, and with nine supported entries this year, JD Classics knows the Mille Miglia better than almost any other classic car specialist.
For this year’s gruelling 1000-mile rally, the JD Classics Competition Department prepared, rallied and supported two Jaguar XK120s, three XK140s, an Aston Martin DB2, an Alfa Romeo 1900, a Lincoln Capri and a Jaguar MkVII. As all of the Mille Miglia cars arrived at the Brescia Trade Centre for scrutineering on the first day, the JD Classics hospitality lounge opened its doors to all competing crews.
For months before the rally, JD Classics’ expert engineers and craftsmen were fettling and fine-tuning the cars, some of which were customer entries, some of which were JD Classics’ own. On the gruelling four-day event itself, each of the team’s entries has its own support vehicle on-hand to get competitors back on the road, should anything go wrong.
With driving stints as long as 15 hours at a time, taking in Italy’s most incredible roads from Brescia to Rome and back to Brescia, the Mille Miglia is both the most breath-taking and most demanding road rally in the world. Around 20 per cent of competitors don’t even make it to the finish line, such are the demands placed on both car and driver.
But JD Classics’ decades of experience in preparing world-class competition cars shone through as its entries battled through incredible rain in Rimini, challenging mountain roads down to Rome and days of non-stop high-speed driving. The support crews ensured not even a puncture would slow the team down, while the JD Classics engineers worked through the nights to have the cars in perfect working order at the beginning of each day.
Run as a time trial event, rather than a race, smooth-running of the cars is paramount. And the reliability of the JD Classics’ cars allowed them to finish strongly in the final rankings, with the Lincoln Capri and Jaguar Mk VII both in the top 200 – an excellent result in an event competed by around 450 time trial experts.
JD Classics founder, Derek Hood, said: “The Mille Miglia is such a beautiful and unique spectacle, but it’s also incredibly demanding. That’s why we work so hard preparing the cars to an impeccable standard at our workshop back in Maldon, why we have expert engineers on the road in Italy and why we know this event inside-out – so we can always ensure our clients enjoy only the best bits of the Mille Miglia.”
To experience a taste of the Mille Miglia with JD Classics, the team has produced a short film. You can watch a teaser below:
JD Classics entries:
1. Jaguar XK120 ‘OVT 325’
2. Jaguar XK120 ‘TAL 81’
3. Jaguar XK140 ‘OGD 261’
4. Jaguar XK140 ‘156 XUY’
5. Jaguar XK140 ‘2B6 325’
6. Jaguar MkVII ‘LHP 5’
7. Alfa Romeo 1900C ‘WSU 590’
8. Aston Martin DB2 ‘JAK 648’
9. Lincoln Capri ’54 LNCN’
