On the day of Friday 26 April, from 11am to 4pm, the technical checks of the historic cars that will participate in the 2024 edition of the re-enactment of the Tuscan Cup will be held in Piazzale Michelangelothe event organized by CAMET (Club Auto e Moto d’Epoca Toscano) which has been repeated every year since 1996 to remember one of the most famous post-war road races – the Coppa della Toscana – which crossed the “Grand Duchy” in the years from 1949 to 1954.
During the checks the cars will remain on display open to the public. It will be an overview of historical motoring from the 1920s to the 1970s with cars from all over Italy and abroad.
Between “pre-war” you will be able to admire the French Salmsons Gran Sport, from 1927, one of the 130 produced, in comparison with the Italian Lancia Lambda from 1928, the first car in the world with a load-bearing body. Then there are the Balillas, with three and four gears. After the war it was possible to enter the world of the Mille Miglia with the Jaguar Biondetti, the car that the multi-victorious Florentine driver built based on the Jaguar bodywork but with a powerful Ferrari engine. Also in the golden age of road racing, you will be able to see the minimal ISO Isetta, the very car that participated in the 1954 Coppa Toscana which, with its 236 cc two-stroke “moped”, covered 760 km of the Tuscan circuit at an average speed of over 68 km/h.
Many crews come from abroad. This year too, numerous Swiss and French crews came to Florence – by road – with historic Citroëns, the innovative cars commissioned by André Citroën and designed by the Italian Flaminio Bertoni, from the Traction Avant of the 40s and 50s to the beautiful DS cabriolet. From Hungary, a 1948 Lancia Ardea will arrive and travel more than 900 kilometers to reach the Piazzale. Among the many beautiful cars that can be admired, there will be a Giulia from the “flying” department of the Traffic Police, in the olive-yellow livery celebrated in “poliziottesque” films.
Some of the participating cars will be refueled with “Sustain classic” petrol, a biofuel of non-fossil origin produced from food and vegetable waste which is already on sale in England and which, with the Coppa Toscana, makes its debut in Italy, write the organizers. Biofuel is produced with 80% renewable content and has 65% less impact on the greenhouse effect than fossil fuels. The biofuel can be mixed with conventional petrol and will therefore be added to cars that test it without emptying the tank.
From Piazzale Michelangelo the cars will move to Siena. On the weekend of 27 and 28 April, the caravan of historic cars will immerse itself in the views of the Crete Senesi and the Val d’Orcia, passing by Bibbiano castle and Tancredi castle. The crews will visit the abbey of Sant’Antimo founded by Charlemagne and will stop in Montalcino at the Brunello temple-museum. The cars will then cross San Quirico d’Orcia, on the Via delle Mille Miglia, to arrive in Siena, in Piazza del Duomo and Piazza del Campo.
