The Winter Marathon Rally 2015 was held 22-25 January at Madonna di Campiglio in the Dolomite Mountains of Italy. A field of 120 historic car teams challenged this year’s reliability trial that once again proved to be an exciting combination of cold weather, snowy conditions and lots of curves. This year’s Winter Marathon covered 427 kilometers, from the most beautiful streets of Trentino Alto Adige to the most challenging Dolomite passes — four of them over 2,000 meters high.
The cars entered in this year’s rally were built before 1968, except for a selection of special interest cars built through 1976 that made history in 1970s rallies, such as the 1974 Lancia Stratos of Tonoli-Bresciani, the 1976 Renault Alpine A110 1800 of Pasquale-Roggeri, the two Fiat 124 Abarth Rally built in 1975 driven by Stancari-Valentini and Simone Bertolero, the 1970 Lancia Fulvia Coupee Rallye 1.6 HF of Lyveroulaz-Trossello and some well-known Porsche 911 models.
Porsche was again the most represented brand with about a third of participating cars. There were official crews from Centro Porsche Brescia, with Biagio Capolupo and Beatrice Saottini on a 911 S built in 1968, and from Porsche Italia with the 1973 RS Carrera driven by Felix Brautigam and Pietro Innocenti and a 356 A Speedster produced in 1955 and driven by Mauro Gentile and Ilaria Salzano.
Volvo Italy was present with three cars — a PV544 built in 1965 driven by the former Formula 1 driver Ivan Capelli and Guido Urbini, the Margiotta-Perno team on a 1965 1800 S and Fabbri-Bertieri with a 1961 122S. Alfa Romeo Museum competed with the 1964 Giulia TI Super driven by Alessandro Gamberini (Winner in 2008) and Karsten Rehmann.
The 2015 running of the Winter Marathon saw many retirements due to mechanical problems, reflecting the difficulty of all cars to complete the 427 km route. Only 83 of the 120 entered crews made the finish.
Alberto Aliverti and Alberto Maffi won the 27th annual Winter Marathon in their 1940 Lancia Aprilia, ahead of Margiotta-Perno in a 1965 Volvo 1800S – winner in 2013 and runner-up in 2014 – and the crew of Fontanella-Malta with their 1955 Porsche 356 A Coupe. Notably, Luca Patron and Massimo Casale took their 1925 Bentley 3-Litre one step off the podium in 4th position.
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Similar to 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, photographer Pierpaolo Romano also provided a superb set of images from the Winter Marathon Rally 2015. We split up Pierpaolo’s pictures into two galleries. The first gallery starting below features our favorite images, all displayed in the full-width view of Sports Car Digest, while the second gallery and rally results can be found on the last page of the article and gives a comprehensive view of all the photographs.
Winter Marathon Rally 2015 – Featured Photo Gallery
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Winter Marathon Rally 2015 – Featured Photo Gallery Page Two
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Winter Marathon Rally 2015 – Featured Photo Gallery Page Three
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Winter Marathon Rally 2015 – Featured Photo Gallery Page Four
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Winter Marathon Rally 2015 – Featured Photo Gallery Page Five
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Winter Marathon Rally 2015 – Main Photo Gallery (click image for larger picture and description)
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Winter Marathon Rally 2015 – Rally Results
1. Alberto Aliverti and Alberto Maffi, 1940 Lancia Aprilia
2. Antonino Margiotta and Bruno Perno, 1965 Volvo 1800S
3. Gianmario Fontanella and Alessandro Malta, 1955 Porsche 356 A Coupe
4. Luca Patron and Massimo Casale, 1925 Bentley 3-Litre
5. Francesco and Giuseppe Di Pietra, 1938 Fiat 508 C
The unauthorized use and/or duplication of any editorial or photographic content from sportscardigest.com without express and written permission from the publisher is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to sportscardigest.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
[Source: Winter Marathon; photos: Pierpaolo Romano]
Chillingly excellent photographs – great job!
Nice photos. Having photographed Ice Races I can appreciate the cold. One small typo, the number 86 Volvo listed as a 1961 140 series is actually a 120 series car.
Bob harrington
Note that it doesn’t take a lot of horsepower to win on this event. I don’t think any of the top 3 finishers had more than 100 hp. It’s all about tires, smooth driving style, and a broad torque curve. Looks like the public road sections were mostly wet pavement, perhaps some icy patches in the shadows, while the “special man-made circuit” sections had snow brought in and packed smooth. Would be interesting to know how many studs were allowed (on the tires…not behind the wheel!), and what types of tires were used by the top 10 finishers.
Amazing photos, thanks for sharing them!
Where was the Lancia Stratos? I think it might be the one I drove in Bari about 1998 which was one of the rally works cars. Really wanted to have it, but wasn’t for sale then.
That probably was a great event, looks really fun from the pics…
We need events like this in the States!