1959 BMW 700

By Jackie Jouret
Photos courtesy The BMW Archive

When eleven spectators were killed watching the 1938 Mille Miglia, Italy’s Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini ordered the race canceled for 1939. The Axis powers remained eager to demonstrate their superiority through motorsport, however, and the race was back on again for 1940. This time, the Mille Miglia would trade its traditional mountain route from Brescia to Rome and back for a shorter course that triangulated Brescia with Cremona and Mantua. Although it had a few curvy sections, it was primarily held along flat, straight roads that would favor cars with a high top speed over those with agile handling.

If a car could combine those two traits, of course, it would have an additional advantage. As we saw in the first installment of this series, BMW’s 328 roadster had exceptional handling and a fine engine, especially in full-race form, and indeed a 328 with aerodynamic coupe bodywork from Touring of Milan had already won its class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1939 when it lined up for the start of the 1940 Mille Miglia, aka the Gran Premio Brescia delle Mille Miglia.

In Italy, the Touring-bodied 328 coupe defeated a fleet of Touring-bodied Alfa-Romeos, as well as the other cars entered by the BMW factory team. These included another aerodynamic coupe built in-house at BMW, and a trio of custom-bodied BMW roadsters, two of which we’ll examine here.

By Jackie Jouret
Photos courtesy The BMW Archive

To be successful at Le Mans, or in any high-speed competition, you need more than just a powerful motor. You also need effective aerodynamics. With low drag combined with stability at speed, power becomes less important overall, and even a relatively underpowered car can win races.

BMW’s 328 had been winning races since its 1936 debut at the Nürburgring, but it did so largely thanks to exquisitely balanced performance and responsive handling rather than outright power. (Which is not to say that the M328 six-cylinder engine was anything short of a masterpiece; it remains a superb engine, with hemispherical combustion chambers and an innovative valvetrain.) Those traits had allowed the BMW roadster to sweep the podium for 2.0-liter sports car class in the 1938 Mille Miglia, for instance, where the mountainous course played perfectly to the car’s strengths.