Event
The Targa Florio is motorsport's oldest road race, born on 6 May 1906 when Vincenzo Florio sent ten drivers into the Madonie mountains on roads that were little more than mule tracks. The winner, Alessandro Cagno in an Itala, completed three laps of the 148-kilometre circuit in just over nine hours. Over the following seven decades, the Targa would host Nuvolari, Fangio, Moss, and Vaccarella on what drivers called the most beautiful and most terrifying race in the world: over 800 corners, 1,100 metres of elevation change, stone walls inches from the tyres, and crowds lining every hairpin from Cerda to Collesano.
The speed race ended in 1977 after mounting fatalities made continuation unconscionable. But the roads remained, and so did the interest. Today the Targa Florio Classica revives that history as a regularity rally for historic cars, organised by ACI Sport and forming part of the Campionato Italiano Grandi Eventi. Around 230 crews gather in Palermo each October for four days that weave through the Madonie's switchbacks, coastal straights, and medieval hill towns. The route has expanded in recent years to include the salt pans near Marsala and the Cretto di Burri land art installation near Gibellina, yet the heart of the event remains the Circuito delle Madonie.
For spectators, the entire route is free to watch. The start ceremony unfolds in Palermo's Piazza Verdi, beneath the Teatro Massimo, before the cars disappear into the mountains. Following the rally means chasing it through villages where the cheering has continued, in one form or another, since 1906. The competition now rewards precision over outright speed, but the landscape and the Sicilian crowd remain constants.
Palermo is straightforward to reach by air from most European cities, with the Falcone–Borsellino airport west of the city. Those who prefer to drive can combine the event with a broader Sicilian road trip – the western half of the island between Trapani, Agrigento and the Madonie mountains covers enough ground for a week without repetition.
