Giuseppe Campari was the undisputed king of the Mille Miglia. The winner in 1928 and 1929, third in 1930 and second in 1931, he was expected to make another bold show in the 1932 race, particularly since he was at the wheel of one of the all-conquering Alfa Romeos. In recent years the event had virtually turned into an Alfa benefit and in 1932 the company provided almost half of the entire 88-car entry. There were works cars for Campari, Rudolf Caracciola, Baconin Borzacchini and Tazio Nuvolari, supplemented by several Scuderia Ferrari Alfas entered by Enzo Ferrari and driven by the likes of Pietro and Mario Ghersi, Giulio Ramponi, Carlo Trossi, Antonio Brivio and Piero Taruffi. One man sadly missing from the Alfa line-up was Luigi Arcangeli who had been killed at Monza while practising for the previous year’s Italian Grand Prix. The serious opposition to Alfa was pretty much confined to Achille Varzi in a Bugatti and the Lancia Lambda of Strazza and Gismondi, although there were interesting entries from a couple of English aristocrats – Lord de Clifford in a 750cc MG Midget and the Hon. Brian Lewis (later Lord Essendon) at the wheel of a Talbot 105.
On the first section to Bologna, Nuvolari led from Varzi and Caracciola, with just five seconds covering them, and all three averaging over 100mph (160.9km/h) for the stage, but as the cars took to the mountains Varzi sustained a hole in his petrol tank and retired. Approaching Florence, Pietro Ghersi tried to take a sharp bend too fast and skidded into a lamp-post, wrecking the car. A few minutes later the cheering crowd welcomed the 1930 winner Nuvolari but, spotting the bent Alfa, his attention wandered for a split second, which was long enough for him to crash into a tree, his car coming to rest a matter of yards from Ghersi’s. The impact of the accident was so severe that Nuvolari’s co-driver, Gianbattista Guidotti, was thrown from the car and knocked unconscious. When Guidotti eventually came round, there was no sign of Nuvolari, but he was vaguely aware of being carried on a stretcher by four sinister-looking figures wearing long, flowing cloaks with hoods over their heads. Dazed and confused, Guidotti feared he was being abducted by the Ku Klux Klan, so he closed his eyes and pretended to be dead. Only later did he discover that his ‘abductors’ were dedicated Florentine monks who were taking him to the monastery hospital for treatment. Another early casualty was Giacomo Ragnoli, who was making his race debut in a Fiat. Heading south from Bologna on the road to Florence, his car veered off the road on a bend. Ragnoli was unharmed and walked into an inn, conveniently located on the offending corner, and downed several brandies. In the following year’s race he went off at the same corner …
At Florence it was Caracciola who led from Campari and Taruffi, and the positions remained unaltered down to Rome except that Campari and Taruffi swapped places. Crossing the Apennines, Caracciola lost valuable time when he was forced to stop to adjust his brakes and by the time he reached Terni, the German’s lead over Taruffi had been cut to a minute with Campari a further minute adrift in third. Campari began to scent another famous victory and overhauled Taruffi, so that by Perugia he was just 35 seconds behind Caracciola with Borzacchini moving up to third. Building up a veritable head of steam, the burly Campari powered on and had surged into the lead as he approached the Adriatic coast. However, such flat-out driving over winding roads had taken its toll and Campari decided to let his mechanic, Sozzi, have a turn at the wheel so that the great man could take a breather in preparation for the final assault. No sooner had Sozzi taken over than he crashed the Alfa into a wall near Ancona and put himself and Campari out of the race. Perhaps understandably, Campari was not best pleased and chased the tearful Sozzi down the road brandishing a hammer from the tool kit. Fortunately for Sozzi, while he may not have been the faster driver, he was the faster runner.
Campari’s mishap left Borzacchini in the lead and he pulled out a ten-minute advantage over the ailing Caracciola, who was soon to retire with a cracked chassis. The Alfa of Taruffi and Eugenio Siena gave chase before falling victim to a broken piston near Bologna. This allowed Trossi and Brivio to claim second place, eventually finishing 15 minutes behind the winning car of Borzacchini and Bignami. A total of 42 cars made it back to Brescia with Alfa filling nine of the first ten places, only being denied a clean sweep by the Strazza/ Gismondi Lancia which came seventh. Down in twenty-fifth was the Hon. Brian Lewis who, after already losing time by taking a wrong turning, had to resort to patching up a holed fuel tank with a piece of chewing gum.
So Borzacchini was the toast of Brescia that night … but Campari maintained with some justification that victory should have been his.