Racing across Italy in a strawberry-red 300 SL: Mille Miglia underway for 2021

This year, 375 cars took the start ramp, including a 1928 Alfa Romeo 6C 1500 Super Sport, BMW 328s, Lancia Lambda Spiders and Aston Martin Le Mans.

Among the Chopard cars is an Ermini Sport 1100 and a Porsche 356 driven by Romain Dumas. Jacky Ickx has come along for the ride too — literally, as Scheufele’s passenger in a car that is part of Mille Miglia folklore.

Caracciola returned to the race in 1952 at the wheel of a Mercedes 300SL; three years later, Stirling Moss famously won with Motor Sport’s Denis Jenkinson as navigator driving an SLR version. And when Scheufele was looking to compete in his first race, back in 1988, there was only one car that fitted the bill. The very first time was in the family’s 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL ‘Gullwing’ which I persuaded my father to buy in 1988 so we could take part. It has since completed the Mille Miglia around 15 times and is quite well known because of its unusual, pale strawberry paint colour.”

Since then, he has completed the event in a pre-war Bentley and Ferrari 750 Monza, as well as a Porsche 550 Spyder, but returned this year in his distinctive Mercedes.

“Who could fail to be inspired by the incredible record time set by the late Sir Stirling Moss and his navigator Denis Jenkinson?” asks Scheufele. “They completed the course in their Mercedes-Benz 300SLR in a time of 10 hours and seven minutes. That is an almost unbelievable speed, especially considering the state of the roads at the time and  that they had to roaring through villages lined with spectators. They finished a full half-hour ahead of Juan-Manuel Fangio, and the account of the drive that Jenkinson subsequently wrote for Motor Sport is something I have read many, many times.”

With more than 15 races under its belt, Scheufele’s Mercedes is likely to take this year’s race in its stride and, as long-term friends, driver and navigator are unlikely to fall out over map reading.

But the race can still be a stern test of competitors and machine — as Scheufele found in 1994 when he used that year’s Mille Miglia to make certain that he had made the right choice in the biggest decision of his life.

“I took part with my now-wife, Christine, shortly before our wedding,” he says, “We took part in our four-and-a-half litre Bentley, which we drove from Geneva to the start line. Not long before it had been restored by someone who was not, shall we say, a Bentley specialist and who didn’t know the cars terribly well.

“When the event got underway I soon noticed that everyone else seemed to be braking much later than I was and seemed to be far more in control. We carried on and completed the course, despite snow and hail causing much of the car’s interior  to freeze-over. As we drove back to Switzerland, the accelerator pedal broke off – I made a temporary one with a screwdriver –  the battery went flat and the windscreen wipers and lights consequently stopped working on the motorway, but we made it home. Later, I took the car to a Bentley specialist who was amazed to hear that we had completed the Mille Miglia. He said the brakes simply weren’t working, which explained why I had ended-up relying entirely on engine braking to slow us down.”

Despite the mechanical drama, harmony reigned behind the wheel and the wedding went ahead. “It was a test in disguise, to make sure I was marrying the right person – and I have no regrets!”

Each year, the race inspires a new watch and this year is no exception: Scheufele will be driving with the latest Chopard Mille Miglia Race Edition. “I always drive wearing the latest version,” he says. “But if I had to choose one favourite from all the different models we have made, it would be the one from 1995 which was the first watch to be fitted with a rubber strap featuring a tyre tread pattern. The idea came to me when I was lying on the grass studying the road book between rally stages, and I happened to glance across at the Porsche 550 Spyder I was driving and noticed the tread of its Dunlop racing tyres.  Jacky Ickx arranged a formal introduction to Dunlop and we were subsequently allowed to reproduce the pattern on our rubber straps. It was the first time anyone had made such a watch strap, but plenty have done so since.”

With an endurance champion alongside, the latest in timekeeping on his wrist, and a race-proven car underneath him, Scheufele could well follow in the wheel tracks of Caracciola, 90 years earlier and claim victory in this year’s event. Or he may bask in the landscape that bedevilled his compatriot, and admire the cars of his fellow competitors. “I completely agree with the Italian sentiment that it is ‘the most beautiful race in the world,” he says.