How the death of a myth killed the Mille Miglia in 1957

On May 12, 1957, a group of locals from Guidizzolo, Italy gathered in front of their homes to watch some of the world's finest sports cars flash by en route to the finish line that would mark the end of the grueling Mille Miglia. For 30 years, other locals and previous generations stood alongside that very same ribbon of road, watching that very same race.

But on May 12, a Ferrari 335 S scythed through the crowd, and in an instant, nine spectators were dead — cut down just outside their homes. This was the crash that would kill the Mille Miglia, Italy's iconic 1,000-mile race from Brescia to Rome. Ask around, though, and you might find that the tragedy of civilian deaths was nothing compared to the horror of that Ferrari's driver, Spanish nobleman Alfonso de Portago.

If you watched the 2023 film Ferrari starring Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari, then you're likely familiar with this incident; the crash shown at the end of the movie is the very one that ended the Mille Miglia. Today on “Deadly Passions, Terrible Joys,” though, we're going to turn our gaze to the driver in question, Alfonso de Portago, in order to better understand how some motorsport accidents are deemed more tragic than others thanks to the mythic status drivers like Portago held. 

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Episode Bibliography: 

• Cars at Speed by Robert Daley

• The Limit by Michael Cannell

• Enzo Ferrari by Brock Yates

• https://vault.si.com/vault/1957/05/20/horror-in-italy 

• https://www.history.com/news/the-horrific-1957-ferrari-crash-that-ended-the-mille-miglia-race 

• https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/june-1956/26/another-mille-miglia-with-moss/ 

• https://www.newspapers.com/image/503267169/?match=1&terms=%22de%20portago%22&_gl=1%2adnjufr%2a_up%2aMQ..&gclid=CjwKCAiAqrG9BhAVEiwAaPu5zinarN6sTwRXIAG8BQ7n5kyw7AKyBsnsc1bFahJmRyS6Uh9Oub71ohoCHcgQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds 

• https://www.newspapers.com/image/717878577/?match=1&terms=%22de%20portago%22&_gl=1%2a1x6c31p%2a_up%2aMQ..&gclid=CjwKCAiAqrG9BhAVEiwAaPu5zinarN6sTwRXIAG8BQ7n5kyw7AKyBsnsc1bFahJmRyS6Uh9Oub71ohoCHcgQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

• https://archive.org/details/sim_car-and-driver_1957-08