1955 Targa Florio

World Sports Car Championship as the Carrera Panamericana was cancelled and the Targa was allowed to take the late season slot, as a second Italian round after the Mille Miglia in May.

Jaguar did not show up in Sicily at the unknown 72 km long road track, but Mercedes came three weeks early to practice with seven cars.

Meanwhile, Officine Alfieri Maserati sent a total of six works cars across the Strait of Messina to keep their very slim championship hopes alive.

[1] The third marque chasing the title, Daimler-Benz AG entered three of their Mercedes-Benz 300SLRs to tackle the 44.64 mile circuit.

They had decided to quit racing at the end of the 1955 season, but one last major attempt was made to wrest the World Sports Car Championship away from Ferrari.

The cars were to be driven by Juan Manuel Fangio and Karl Kling, Stirling Moss and Peter Collins, and John Fitch with former Jaguar driver, Desmond Titterington.

And the right side panel looked as though they had had a number of encounters with buildings as the two Englishmen pushed the 300SLR hard through the Sicilian countryside.

Trouble struck again when Collins drove straight up a stone wall, his front wheels spinning in the air.

[9][10] Moss drove the only way that he knew how and won going away or in the words of Peter Collins "despite Stirling's efforts and my own to write the machine off!"

[11] As a result, car number 104 (Daimler-Benz AG), took an impressive victory, winning in a time of 9hrs 43.14 mins., averaging a speed of 59.832 mph.