BMW Group Classic Celebrates 75th Anniversary of Mille Miglia Victory

Experience Mille Miglia from Behind the Wheel with BMW Online

Munich/Brescia.  With a rich history at the legendary Mille Miglia, this year’s long-distance event is an especially meaningful one for BMW Group Classic. It was 75 years ago that Fritz Huschke von Hanstein and Walter Bäumer, driving the BMW 328 Mille Miglia Touring Coupé, completed the Mille Miglia 1940 as overall winners. While the race has changed, BMW’s passion for the event has not. The Group has signed up six BMW 328 models for this year’s event, once again demonstrating the close ties that bind the BMW brand to the epic Mille Miglia.

The event, now a reliability trial, starts on May 14, 2015 in the north Italian city of Brescia and will cover more than 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles). This year all of the exciting imagery and moments from the event will be showcased by BMW via their social and online channels. From driver’s side perspective to conversations along the way, BMW is giving its fans a behind-the-wheel look into this one of a kind event.

“While we have realized a number of victories throughout the history of the Mille Miglia, it is our win at the 1940 event that remains as our most enduring and remarkable success,” said Alexander Bilgeri, BMW Group’s Vice President of Corporate Communications of the Americas. “We’re honored to showcase in authentic form the vehicles that have helped BMW achieve incredible success in the world’s most celebrated classic event all those years ago. And we are happy that this year we will bring this amazing event to many via our social channels such as Facebook and our Press Group website.”

The teams competing in the BMW 328 swept the top spots in the 2.0-litre category in 1938, and secured its famous overall victory just two years later. Following the Mille Miglia’s switch in format, Giuliano Cané and his wife Lucia Galliani took the car across the finish line in Brescia to a second victory in 2004. With that victory, the BMW 328 Mille Miglia Touring Coupé became the first car to ever win both the classic race event and the new version of the Mille Miglia for historic automobiles.

The field of BMW 328 models will surely please classic car enthusiasts, as BMW Group Class plans to dispatch six teams in the 2015 Mille Miglia. This year’s cars include the BMW 328 Berlin-Rom Touring Roadster, the BMW 328 Mille Miglia Roadster, and four additional BMW 328 models. Alexander Bilgeri and BMW collector Scott Hughes will be behind the wheel of the Mille Miglia Roadster representing the US side of the BMW team in Italy.

The Mille Miglia was first held in 1927 and was soon rated as the world’s greatest motor sport challenge. Up until 1957, the cars drove on public highways and narrow urban streets, and partly also along unsurfaced roads. The event was revived in a new format in 1977, and has since been staged as a 1,000-mile reliability and regularity trial. A total of 438 historic vehicles have registered for the 2015 Mille Miglia. This year’s round trip will be carried out over four days, commencing from the traditional starting point on May 14, 2015, and ending on May 17, 2015, when competitors will race towards Brescia, where the first cars are expected to arrive around midday.

For more information on BMW’s history at the Mille Miglia, as well as photos and videos from this year’s event, please visit www.press.bmwgroup.com.

BMW Group In America

BMW of North America, LLC has been present in the United States since 1975. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars NA, LLC began distributing vehicles in 2003. The BMW Group in the United States has grown to include marketing, sales, and financial service organizations for the BMW brand of motor vehicles, including motorcycles, the MINI brand, and the Rolls-Royce brand of Motor Cars; Designworks, a strategic design consultancy based in California; a technology office in Silicon Valley and various other operations throughout the country. BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC in South Carolina is part of BMW Group’s global manufacturing network and is the exclusive manufacturing plant for all X5 and X3 Sports Activity Vehicles and X6 and X4 Sports Activity Coupes. The BMW Group sales organization is represented in the U.S. through networks of 339 BMW passenger car and BMW Sports Activity Vehicle centers, 146 BMW motorcycle retailers, 122 MINI passenger car dealers, and 35 Rolls-Royce Motor Car dealers. BMW (US) Holding Corp., the BMW Group’s sales headquarters for North America, is located in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.

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Journalist note: Information about BMW Group and its products in the USA is available to journalists on-line at www.bmwgroupusanews.com and www.press.bmwna.com.