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52-626: The team competed at the Targa Florio in 1937, 1938 and 1939, where it finished second, third, and second again with Lurani, Cortese and Villoresi. Cortese took also part at the German Grand Prix in 1938, where he finished ninth. In 1947 future World Champion Alberto Ascari drove for the team. Other drivers associated with Scuderia Ambrosiana include Tazio Nuvolari , Reg Parnell , Leslie Brooke and Clemar Bucci . Between 1950 and 1954 Scuderia Ambrosiana competed sporadically in

104-492: A podium . The table does not include the results of the 1957 edition, which was held as a regularity race. 37°56′52″N 13°47′10″E  /  37.94778°N 13.78611°E  / 37.94778; 13.78611 Mercedes (car) Mercedes ( German: [mɛʁˈtseːdəs, -dɛs] ) was a brand originally created by the Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) and used for first time in

156-403: A group of spectators, killing one. There were several other accidents during practice in which a total of seven spectators sustained injuries. The event was won by a Porsche 911 Carrera RSR as the prototypes such as Jacky Ickx 's Ferrari suffered crashes or other troubles. The Targa's international demise was compounded by widespread concern about the organizers' inability to properly maintain

208-682: A lot wider in the late 1960's thanks to the development of the Autostrade motorways all over Italy. The challenge of the Targa was unprecedented in its difficulty and the driving experience of any of the course variants was unlike any other circuit in the world other than perhaps that of the Nurburgring in Germany and (for motorcycles) and the much faster but similar Snaefell Mountain Course on

260-458: A member of the DMG Board of Management and obtained the exclusive dealership for the model—that would become the new Mercedes 35 hp —for France, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, and United States of America. However, the first one was not delivered to Jellinek until 22 December. Jellinek laid down strict specifications for the new model stating "I don't want a car for today or tomorrow, it will be

312-678: 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 course 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. In 1953, the FIA World Sportscar Championship

364-411: A profitable business selling cars, and, as a racing enthusiast, had been racing DMG automobiles under the pseudonym Mercédès , after his daughter, Mercédès Jellinek . Later he contracted with DMG for a small series of dedicated sports cars containing an engine that officially bore his daughter's name. He raced them very successfully, gaining recognition that increased interest in customers and Jellinek

416-410: A road car- if there was little to no traffic. To even finish this punishing race required a very reliable car- and it being a slow, twisty circuit it was very hard on the gearbox, brakes and the suspension of a car. Some manufacturers and entrants, particularly non-Italian ones would sometimes outright skip the Targa because of the difficulty of learning the layout and were unsure if their cars could stand

468-560: A special version named Targa Florio to commemorate victory by journalist-rallyist Evan Green on a Special Stage of the 1974 London-Sahara-Munich World Cup Rally which was held on the Targa Florio course. Since 1992 the event has lent its name to a modern recreation, staged half-a-world away in the form of the famous road rally Targa Tasmania held on the island state of Tasmania, off the Southern coast of Australia. There are also

520-528: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Formula One –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Targa Florio 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, part of the World Sportscar Championship between 1955 and 1973. While

572-557: Is relatively small compared to other open road races, like the Mille Miglia , where over a period of 30 years and 24 races, 56 people lost their lives and the Carrera Panamericana , where over a period of 5 years and 5 races, 25 people were killed. This is probably due to the fact that the mountain roads used were extremely slow and twisty, and average lap speeds never reached even 80 mph (130 km/h) even up to

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624-653: The Nice - La Turbie hill climb , but crashed fatally after hitting a rock on the first turn while avoiding spectators. This caused DMG to abandon racing. Nonetheless, Emil Jellinek came to an agreement with DMG on 2 April 1900 by promising the large sum of 550,000 Goldmark if Wilhelm Maybach would design a revolutionary sports car for him, later to be called the Mercedes 35 hp , of which 36 units had to be delivered before 15 October. The contract also included an order for 36 standard DMG 8 hp cars. Jellinek soon became

676-464: The 35 hp model released by the company in 1901. DMG began to develop in 1900, after the death of its co-founder, Gottlieb Daimler . Although the name was not lodged as a trade name until 23 June 1902 and not registered legally until 26 September, the brand name eventually would be applied to an automobile model built by Wilhelm Maybach to specifications by Emil Jellinek . This vehicle was delivered to him on 22 December 1900. By Jellinek's contract,

728-684: 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

780-539: The Isle of Man . All of the variants had 18 to 23 corners per mile (11 to 14 corners per kilometer)- the original Grande 146 km (91 mi) circuit had in the realm of 2,000 corners per lap, the 108 km (67 mi) Medio had about 1,300-1,400 corners per lap and the final iteration of the course, the 72 km (45 mi) Piccolo circuit had about 800-900 corners per lap. To put that into perspective, most purpose-built circuits have between 12 and 18 corners, and

832-599: The Italian Rally Championship . 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 worldly event not to be missed. Renowned artists, such as Alexandre Charpentier and Leonardo Bistolfi , were commissioned to design medals. A magazine

884-656: The Targa New Zealand since 1995, the Targa Newfoundland since 2002 and Targa Great Barrier Reef since 2018 where it is held in the Far North section of Queensland . 2017 will celebrate the 101st Anniversary of the Targa Florio and the first time the event has left Italy. This is an amazing attraction for Victoria, Australia and all car enthusiasts. The event, tours Victoria’s coast and countryside from November 29 to December 3 and features over 150 of

936-469: 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 1926, Eliska Junkova , one of the great female drivers in Grand Prix motor racing history, became the first woman to ever compete in the race. The 1931 race saw

988-562: The 4 days. The inaugural event was a huge success and was repeated in 2018. The 3rd Targa Florio Australian Tribute 2019 will be held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, from 27 November to 1 December 2019. Races between 1955 and 1973 were part of the World Championship, with the 1957 race not a race but a regularity test following the Mille Miglia accident. The list below includes all car manufacturers who have attained

1040-493: The 72 km (45 mi) circuit used from 1932 to 1936 and 1951 to 1977. From 1951-1958, 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 600 metres (1,970 ft) down to sea level , where the cars raced from Campofelice di Roccella on

1092-625: The Daimler name in France being owned by Panhard & Levassor. Over the next few months, Jellinek oversaw the development of the new car—at first by daily telegrams—and later by traveling to Stuttgart. He took delivery of the first one on 22 December 1900, at Nice's railway station—it had already been sold to the Baron Henri de Rothschild , who also had raced cars in Nice. In 1901, the car amazed

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1144-610: The Formula One World Championship. Their best result was ninth place in their first event, the 1950 British Grand Prix , with David Hampshire in a Maserati 4CL . The team's last entry was at the 1954 British Grand Prix , Reg Parnell retiring his Ferrari 500 . In 1951 Lurani and Giovanni Bracco took part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with a Lancia Aurelia B20 , finishing twelfth. ( key ) (results in bold indicate pole position) (results in italics indicate fastest lap) This motorsport-related article

1196-550: The automobile world. Jellinek again won the Nice races, easily beating his opponents in all the capacity classes and reaching 60 km/h. The director of the French Automobile Club , Paul Meyan, stated: "We have entered the Mercedes era" , a sentiment echoed by newspapers worldwide. The records set by the new Mercedes 35 hp model amazed the entire automobile world. DMG's sales shot up, its Stuttgart plant

1248-409: The brutal pace there. Like a rally event (and events like the Isle of Man TT and the Mille Miglia ), the race cars were started one by one every 15 seconds for a time trial, as a start from a full grid was not possible on the tight and twisty roads. Although the public road circuit used for the Targa was extremely challenging- it was a very different kind of circuit and race from any other race on

1300-523: The car of the day after tomorrow". He itemized many new parameters to overcome the problems found in many of the ill-designed "horseless carriages" of the time which made automobiles unsuitable for high speeds and at risk of overturning: A new engine, developed for the model, would be called the Daimler-Mercedes engine, officially, which the DMG chairman accepted readily as it overcame the problem of

1352-453: The final years of the race's history, even with the very long straight at the northernmost of the track, whereas most road circuits had average speeds anywhere between 110 mph (180 km/h) and even 160 mph (260 km/h). After winning the race several times, Porsche named the hardtop convertible version of the 911 after the Targa. The name targa means plaque or plate , see targa top . The Australian-made Leyland P76 had

1404-466: The first races consisted of a whole tour of the island, the track length in the race's last decades was limited to the 72 km (45 mi) 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

1456-448: The inaugural 1906 race in nine hours, averaging 30 miles per hour (50 km/h). By the early to mid-1920s, 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

1508-415: The late 1960s and early 1970s, race cars with up to 600 hp (450 kW) such as Nino Vaccarella 's Ferrari 512S raced through small mountain villages while spectators sat or stood right next to, or even on, the road. Porsche, on the other hand, did not race its big and powerful 917K , but rather the smaller and nimbler 908/3 Spyders. Due to safety concerns, especially by Helmut Marko , who called

1560-414: The longest purpose-built circuit in the world, the 13-mile Nurburgring, has about 180 corners. So learning any of the Targa Florio courses was extremely difficult and required, like most long circuits, at least 60 laps to learn the course- and unlike the purpose-built Nurburgring, the course had to be learned properly in public traffic, and one lap of even the Piccolo course would take about an hour to do in

1612-489: The name of their founder, Daimler, legally in all countries and decided to use the name of their most popular model. [REDACTED] Mercedes was a brand in the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) which began to develop in 1901, after the death of its co-founder, Gottlieb Daimler . On 30 March 1900, a few weeks after the death of Gottlieb Daimler , Wilhelm Bauer decided spontaneously to enter

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1664-401: The nearby towns of Castellana, Sottana, Madonnuzza and Miranti, twisting around mountains up to the highest point- 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) at Geraci Siculo, dropping down 620 metres (2,030 ft) 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

1716-534: The new model contained a newly designed engine designated "Daimler-Mercedes". This engine name is the first instance of the use of the name Mercedes by DMG. The automobile design would later be called the Mercedes 35 hp . When DMG merged with Benz & Cie to form " Daimler-Benz " in 1926, the new company became owner of the Mercedes brand name. Emil Jellinek was an Austrian-Jewish diplomat based in Nice who ran

1768-474: The race "totally insane", the last Targa Florio run as an FIA World Sportscar Championship race was in 1973. During the 1973 event, there were an unusually high number of accidents, two of which were fatal; one which privateer Charles Blyth crashed his Lancia Fulvia HF into a trailer at the end of the Buonfornello straight and was killed; and another where an Italian driver crashed his Alpine-Renault into

1820-474: The race on such a massive circuit. There were not enough marshals, most spectators sat too close to the roads, and also the international automotive governing body, the FIA, mandated safety walls on all circuits that hold FIA-mandated events from 1974 onwards. The 72-kilometre (45 mi) length of combined public roads made this impracticable, especially from a financial standpoint. The sport's growing professionalism

1872-480: The road and crashed at the fast curves at the end of the Buonfornello straight after some of the bodywork flew off his BMW-powered Osella prototype. This accident killed 2 spectators and seriously injured 5 others (including Ciuti, who went into a coma, but survived), and effectively sealed the race's fate. After this accident the race was forcibly taken over by local police and was stopped on the 4th lap, and it also saw 2 other drivers having serious accidents; one of them

1924-629: The sportscar calendar. All of the circuit variations of the Targa had so many corners that lap speeds at the Targa never went higher than 80 mph (128 km/h), as opposed to Le Mans in France, where cars would average 150+ mph (240+ km/h) or the Nürburgring, where cars would average 110 mph (176 km/h). Helmut Marko set the lap record in 1972 in an Alfa Romeo 33TT3 at 33 min 41 s at an average of 128.253 km/h (79.693 mph) during an epic charge where he made up 2 minutes on Arturo Merzario and his Ferrari 312PB . The fastest ever

1976-486: The track also went south through Caltavuturo and took a shortcut starting right before Castellana to Collesano via the town of Polizzi Generosa . There was a closed circuit called Favorita Park in the Sicilian capital of Palermo used from 1937-1940. All the roads used for all the variations of the circuits are still in use and can be driven on today. Originally a narrow 2-lane country road, the Buonfornello straight became

2028-441: The track were used. It started with a single lap of a 148 km (92 mi) circuit from 1906-1911 and 1931. From 1912 to 1914 a tour around the perimeter of Sicily was used, with a single lap of 975 kilometres (606 mi), lengthened to 1,080 kilometres (670 mi) from 1948 to 1950. The 146 km "Grande" circuit was then shortened twice, the first time to 108 km (67 mi), the version used from 1919-1930, and then to

2080-666: The victims of the 1955 Le Mans disaster , but won the Tourist Trophy at Dundrod . Despite a number of incidents, the Stirling Moss / Peter Collins and Juan Manuel Fangio / Karl Kling cars finished minutes ahead of the best Ferrari and secured the title. In 1958 the race again became a round in the Championship replacing the discontinued Mille Miglia as the Italian round of the Championship. Several versions of

2132-401: The world’s most admirable cars and is expected to attract fans, celebrities and media from across the globe. The Targa Florio Australian Tribute (TFAT - https://www.targaflorioaustralia.com/ ) is a regularity event for classic cars produced in the years between 1906 and 1976. Cars competed over 4 days on Victoria’s open roads at regulated speed. As part of the event there were 56 trials across

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2184-471: Was Leo Kinnunen in 1970, lapping in the Porsche 908 /3 at 128.571 km/h (79.890 mph) or 33 min 36 seconds flat. Due to the track's length, drivers practised in the week before the race in public traffic, often with their race cars fitted with license plates. Porsche factory drivers even had to watch onboard videos, a sickening experience for some. The lap record for the 146 km "Grande" circuit

2236-408: Was 2 hours 3 min 54.8 seconds set by Achille Varzi in a Bugatti Type 51 at the 1931 race at an average speed of 70.7 km/h (43.931 mph). The lap record for the 108 km "Medio" circuit was 1 hour 21 min 21.6 seconds set by Varzi in an Alfa Romeo P2 at an average speed of 79.642 km/h (49.487 mph) at the 1930 race. The fastest completion around the short version of the island tour

2288-445: Was critically injured, but survived. Although the Targa Florio was a rally-type race that took place on closed-off public mountain roads with (aside from straw bales and weak guardrails at some of the turns, the latter were installed by the island's government) practically no safety features, only 9 people – including spectators – died at the event over the 71 year and 61 race history using a total of 6 circuit configurations. This number

2340-414: Was done by Giovanni "Ernesto" Ceirano in a SCAT at the 1914 race, completed in 16 hours, 51 minutes and 31.6 seconds from May 24–25, 1914. The fastest completion of the long version of the island tour was by Mario and Franco Bornigia in an Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Competizione , completed in 12 hours, 26 minutes and 33 seconds flat at the 1950 race at an average speed of 86.794 km/h (53.931 mph). In

2392-510: Was for 12 hours until teammates Pedro Rodriguez and Richard Attwood found him in a local clinic in Cefalu . Also during this race Alain de Cadenet in a Lola was going down the Buonfornello straight and a piece of bodywork flew off a car in front of him and hit him on the head. He was knocked out cold and the Lola went off the road and crashed into a nearby wall, and caught fire. de Cadenet's life

2444-647: 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. One of the toughest competitions in Europe, the first Targa Florio covered 3 laps of a 92 mile (148 km) circuit, totaling 276 miles (444 km), traversing through winding bends and multiple hairpin curves on treacherous mountain roads, with around 2,000 corners per lap and over 3,600 feet (1,100 m) of elevation change, at heights where severe changes in climate frequently occurred. Alessandro Cagno won

2496-477: Was introduced. The Targa became part of it in 1955 . Mercedes had to win 1-2 with the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR in order to beat Ferrari for the title. They had missed the first two of the 6 events, Buenos Aires and the 12 Hours of Sebring , where Ferrari, Jaguar , Maserati and Porsche scored points. Mercedes appeared at and won in the Mille Miglia , then pulled out of Le Mans as a sign of respect for

2548-425: Was later used to represent DMG in another new brand name, Mercedes-Benz . This was created in 1926 when it was applied to all vehicles produced by the new company, Daimler-Benz AG , resulting from the merger of Benz & Cie. and Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft in that year. The last name of Carl Benz was retained in the new brand, but since DMG had sold exclusive licences to foreign companies, they could not use

2600-546: Was placed on the board of directors of DMG. This model was a significant advancement in the history of automobiles. The model was released for sale in 1901 under the name of Mercedes 35 hp and, because of the success of the model, DMG began to apply the name as a series to other models such as, Mercedes 8/11 hp and Mercedes 40 hp Simplex . Jellinek seems to have become obsessed with the name and even had his name changed to Jellinek-Mercedes. Maybach quit DMG in 1907 and subsequently started up his own business. The name Mercedes

2652-495: Was saved not by marshals, but by an active Italian military serviceman watching the race from a location close to de Cadenet's crash, and he pulled him out of the wreck. de Cadenet was taken to the same clinic in Cefalu where Redman was, where he was badly burned and had lost the use of his left eye. The Targa was continued as a national event for some years, before a crash in 1977 where hillclimbing specialist Gabriele Ciuti went off

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2704-517: Was something the Targa's organizers simply could not keep up with. One example of this concern was when Briton Brian Redman crashed his Porsche 908/03 during the 1971 event 20 miles into the first lap. The steering on his car broke, and it hit a stone wall and caught fire. Redman had second-degree burns all over his body and it took 45 minutes for any medical help to reach Redman (while he was attended to by spectators who were trying to keep him cool by waving objects). The Porsche team did not know where he

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