The Targa Florio returns

A retrospective edition of Sicily’s celebrated Targa Florio road race is to be run in October of this year, with competitors set to compete over two or three laps of the sensational 45-mile Piccolo Madonie circuit. This is the same circuit that represented the last bastion of open-road racing in the World Manufacturers Championship back in 1973.

Peter Auto, the Paris-based team behind both France’s Tour Auto and the Shell Historic Ferrari Maserati Challenge is to organise the event, with wholehearted support from the island. The organisation was due to meet the AC di Palermo to discuss logistics in early May.

“It’s very exciting news,” said British Alfa Romeo expert Paul Grist, who is rebuilding an ex-works T33/3 which contested the 1971 race. “It has given us extra incentive to finish the car in the marque’s 90th year.”

First held in 1906, the Targa Florio enjoyed its glory days from the 1950s to the early ?Os. Though it continued as a national event for some years after it was dropped from the World Series, 1973 is considered to be the last year the proper Targa was run. Herbie Muller and Gijs van Lennep won the race in a Porsche 911 RSR when the Alfa Romeo 33TT12 of Rolf Stommelen and Andrea de Adamich retired after hitting a rock. MP