Some races are not measured in kilometers. The 44th edition of the 1000 Miglia, which starts in Brescia on June 9, 2026 and heads north to Rome, is one of them. This year, Maserati is entering a 1953 A6 GCS/53 – not to win, but to remember. And to pass on.
A car with five lives
Chassis no. 2043 is no museum piece. It is, quite possibly, the Maserati that took part in the greatest number of consecutive editions of the original speed race: five times between 1953 and 1957, driven notably by Luigi Musso, one of the great talents of his generation. What the official press release doesn’t say is what it means to field such a car in 2026: an act of loyalty as much as courage. An authentic racing car, not a replica, not a cosmetic restoration – a machine that has felt the asphalt from Brescia to Rome under other hands, in other lives.
Igor Zanisi, its current owner, is no ordinary collector. A great connoisseur of the Trident’s history, he is taking the wheel this year alongside his daughter Lara. This detail, slipped into the press kit in passing, is worth a closer look. An A6 GCS/53. A father. A daughter. A 1,900-kilometer road. There’s something in this image that goes beyond the mechanical – a kind of passing of the baton that resonates differently at a time when the world of motor racing is seeking to reinvent itself.
Maria Teresa de Filippis, living ghost
Lara Zanisi’s presence in the car is also a tribute to Maria Teresa de Filippis, whose birth centenary Maserati is celebrating. Born in 1926 and died in 2016, de Filippis was the first woman to qualify for and take the start of a Formula 1 Grand Prix – at the wheel of a Maserati 250F at the Belgian Grand Prix in 1958. The official history of motor racing has long relegated her to a footnote. Here, Maserati restores it to a dignity that time had erased.
It’s not a gesture of communication. It’s a correction. The fact that a young woman occupies the passenger seat of the same brand, sixty-eight years later, on the roads of Italy, gives this tribute a consistency that press releases rarely achieve.
The Year of the Trident and memory as compass
Maserati’s participation in the 1000 Miglia 2026 is part of a wider program: the Year of the Trident, which celebrates the centenary of the brand’s emblem and first sporting victory. On April 25, 1926, Alfieri Maserati won his class at the Targa Florio at the wheel of the Tipo 26 – and the Trident appeared for the first time, drawn from Neptune’s fountain in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore.
One hundred years later, Maserati is lining up four models from its current range as assistance cars in exclusive liveries inspired by the Tipo 26, A6 1500, 250F and 3500 GT. These cars don’t run. They accompany. They bear witness to the fact that the distance between yesterday and today is less than you might think – provided you know how to read the signs on the bodywork.
Modena, Wednesday, June 10
For anyone familiar with the Motor Valley, passing through Modena on the second stage will be a special moment. The city remains the beating heart of what Italy produces most irreducibly itself when it comes to automobiles. The 1000 Miglia here is not a setting, but a living memory – that of an industry that has always known that speed alone is not enough. It also needs style. And time.
The A6 GCS/53 will return to its garage after the event. Chassis no. 2043 will be certified by the Maserati Classiche program. And somewhere on that road between Brescia and Rome, Lara Zanisi will have conducted, with her father, a conversation that generations to come will read in the archives – if anyone still bothers to look.
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