The Targa Florio was a public road endurance automobile race held in the mountains of Sicily near the island's capital of Palermo. Founded in 1906, it was the oldest sports car racing event and was part of the World Sportscar Championship between 1955 and 1973. While the first races consisted of a whole tour of the island, the track length in the race's last decades was limited to the of the Circuito Piccolo delle Madonie, which was lapped 11 times.
After 1973, it was a national sports car event until it was discontinued in 1977 due to safety concerns. It has since been run as Targa Florio Rally, a rallying event, and is part of the Italian Rally Championship.
History
The race was created in 1906 by the wealthy pioneer race driver and automobile enthusiast, Vincenzo Florio, who had started the Coppa Florio race in Brescia, Lombardy in 1900. The Targa also claimed to be a world event not to be missed. Renowned artists, such as Alexandre Charpentier and Leonardo Bistolfi, were commissioned to design medals. A magazine was initiated, Rapiditas, which aimed to enhance, with graphic and photographic reproductions of the race, the myth of the car and the typical character of modern life, speed. Florio, Vincenzo, by Simone Candela - Treccani Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 48 (1997)
One of the toughest competitions in Europe, the first Targa Florio covered 3 laps of a 92-mile (148 km) circuit, totaling , traversing through winding bends and multiple hairpin curves on treacherous mountain roads, with around 2,000 corners per lap and over of elevation change, at heights where severe changes in climate frequently occurred. Alessandro Cagno won the inaugural 1906 race in nine hours, averaging 30 miles per hour (50 km/h).
By 1919, the Targa Florio course had been shortened to 67 miles (108 km) and had become one of Europe's most important races, as neither the 24 Hours of Le Mans nor the Mille Miglia had been established yet. Grand Prix races were still isolated events, not a series like today's F1.
The wins of Mercedes (not yet merged with Benz) in the 1920s made a big impression in Germany, especially that of German Christian Werner in 1924, as he was the first non-Italian winner since 1920. Rudolf Caracciola repeated a similar upset win at the Mille Miglia a couple of years later. In 1927, Eliska Junkova, one of the great female drivers in Grand Prix motor racing history, became the first woman to ever compete in the race.
In addition to the automobile event, a Targa Florio motociclistica was held from 1920 to 1930. Ernst Jakob Henne (1904-2005) won in 1928 on a BMW before moving to four wheel BMWs.
The 1931 race saw a one-off return to the Grande course after roads and bridges specifically unique to the Medio course near Polizzi Generosa had been destroyed by landslides during severe rainstorms; the 1932 event saw the first use of the Piccolo course after a road connecting Caltavuturo and Collesano was constructed on the direct orders of Benito Mussolini himself by request of Florio. That road leads down into the valley, crosses the river on a small bridge, and climbs the hillside on the eastern side to join the Polizzi-Collesano road at Bivio Polizzi. In the 2010s, the western part of the road was interrupted by landslides. Tazio Nuvolari won this last classic Targa organized by Vincenzo Florio.
By 1933, 50 year old Florio was ousted by politics and automobile club members, and the race named after him suffered a decline, with fewer participants. The mixture of Grand Prix cars and sportscars at the Targa could not continue for long. For the new kind of single-seat GP racers, the AIACR European Championship was introduced, dominated by German Silver Arrows. The 24 Hours of Le Mans race with its fast straights and big supercharged Bentleys defined sportscar endurance racing. Even within Italy, many events became more significant, like the Mille Miglia, or the Tripoli Grand Prix in Italian North Africa. Without the international contacts and influence of Florio, the Targa could not uphold an unchallenged slot in the calendars. The 20 May 1934 Moroccan Grand Prix was held on the same day. In 1935, the Automobile Club di Sicilia tried to erase the name of Florio and call it Targa Primavera Siciliana, but that failed. It was the last real Targa event in the mountains, won by a Alfa Romeo P3 "Type B" Grand Prix car, with Grand Prix drivers like Antonio Brivio or Louis Chiron.
In 1936, the club could not organise a proper Targa. With time running out, on 20 December 1936, they barely managed to have a few amateurs with small touring cars do two laps of the Piccolo course to put a 1936 Targa Florio entry into history books. From 1937 to 1940, a circuit race in Palermo was held for the Voiturette racing class, dominated by the Maserati 6CM. The last two rounds were won by Luigi Villoresi. In 1941, even the Floriopolis pit facilities were dismantled.
After the war, in 1948, young men like Antonio Pucci and Raimondo Lanza di Trabia managed to revive the Targa Florio, once again as a single lap around the island, won by a Ferrari 166 S of Clemente Biondetti after 12 hours. The 1949 saw a return of Florio to the organisation, but the race was held in March, in rain, and started at night, ending after over 13 hours. Still no permissions for a mountain road race were given in 1950, thus it was yet another big lap around the island, 10° Giro di Sicilia, over 12 hours. In 1951, Giro and Targa were two separate events, as the 72 kilometer long or short Piccolo course could finally be used again, for a Targa that lasted only 7+ hours. Italian veteran racer Franco Cortese won in a British Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica. While the Targa was re-established, it was mostly a national event by and for Italians. The next three years saw Lancia wins. Distance was set to 8 laps for 576 km in over 6 hours.
In 1953, the FIA World Sportscar Championship was introduced, with the Mille Miglia held in May being chosen as the Italian round each year. When the Carrera Panamericana was cancelled after the 1954 event, its mid-October slot in the 1955 World Sportscar Championship was taken over by the 1955 Targa Florio. Sicily was back in the focus of international racing. To fit into the Championship, which typically required races of 1000km or more, 14 laps in about 10 hours would have been necessary, nearly doubling distance and time, but a compromise was reached to do only 13 laps for 936 km. The additional second Italian round gave the Daimler-Benz factory team a late opportunity to beat Scuderia Ferrari, Jaguar and Maserati for the title, and for a third Mercedes Targa win since 1922. After having missed the first two WC rounds, and having pulled out of the fatal 1955 Le Mans 24h race, only two championship race wins had been scored by the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. In the sixth round, a 1–2 win was needed, to prevent competitors from scoring points for 2nd place. After three weeks of practise, and despite a number of incidents, the 300 SLRs of Stirling Moss/Peter Collins and Juan Manuel Fangio/Karl Kling finished after 9+ hours only minutes ahead of the best Ferrari and the 3rd SLR, thus securing the title.
The 1956 World Sportscar Championship had only five rounds, as Le Mans was excluded for limiting prototype engine capacity to only 2.5 liter rather than 3.0, and the Targa for Count Florio insisting on running 10 laps rather than only 8 as demanded by the CSI officials who were much more concerned now about safety. International entrants took part anyway, and the non-championship 1956 Targa Florio saw the first of many wins for Porsche.
Disaster struck at the 1957 Mille Miglia in which 12 people were killed. The Italian government decreed the end of the Mille Miglia and banned all motor racing on the public roads of Italy, which also affected the Targa Florio in that year. The race was cancelled, but in November a regularity contest was held as 1957 Targa Florio.
In the 1958 World Sportscar Championship, the Targa again became a round in the Championship, replacing the discontinued Mille Miglia as the Italian round of the Championship, run in May. Championship status was held until the 1973 World Sportscar Championship.
Course variants
Several versions of the track were used. It started with a single lap of a circuit from 1906 to 1911 and 1931. From 1912 to 1914 a tour around the perimeter of Sicily was used, with a single lap of , lengthened to from 1948 to 1950. The 146 km "Grande" circuit was then shortened twice, the first time to , the version used from 1919 to 1930, and then to the circuit used from 1932 to 1936 and 1951 to 1977. From 1951 to 1958, the long coastal island tour variant was used for a separate event called the Giro di Sicilia (Lap of Sicily).
The start and finish took place at Cerda. The counter-clockwise lap lead from Caltavuturo and Collesano from an altitude over down to sea level, where the cars raced from Campofelice di Roccella on the Buonfornello straight along the coast, a straight that was even longer than the Mulsanne Straight at the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans. The longest version of the circuit went south through Caltavuturo (whereas the shortest version of the open-road circuit went east just before entry into Caltavuturo, through a mountainous section directly to Collesano) through an extended route through elevation changes, and climbed uphill through the nearby towns of Castellana, Sottana, Madonnuzza and Miranti, twisting around mountains up to the highest point- at Geraci Siculo, dropping down into Castelbuono, twisting around more mountains and passing through Isnello and the village of Mongerrati and then rejoined the most recent version of the track at Collesano. The second version of the track also went south through Caltavuturo and took a shortcut starting right before Castellana to Collesano via the town of Polizzi Generosa.
A closed circuit called Favorita Park in the Sicilian capital of Palermo was used from 1937 to 1940. Most of the roads used for all the variations of the circuits are still in use and can be driven on today, but some are affected by landslides and potholes. The Buonfornello straight was not upgraded to a motorway as the Autostrade motorway was built nearby.