Targa Florio

Several versions of the Targa Florio course were used across the race's history. The original Grande circuit, used from 1906 to 1930 with a break in 1931, measured approximately 146 kilometres per lap and passed through a broad sweep of mountain territory including the towns of Cerda, Caltavuturo, Castellana, Geraci Siculo, Castelbuono, Isnello, and Collesano before returning to the start-finish area at Cerda. A further variation of over 975 kilometres circumnavigated the entire island of Sicily and was used from 1912 to 1914 and revived briefly in 1948 to 1950.

The Piccolo delle Madonie circuit, which became the definitive configuration from 1932 to 1936 and again from 1951 to 1977, was established after a road connecting Caltavuturo and Collesano was constructed on the direct orders of Benito Mussolini at the request of Vincenzo Florio. This shorter but still enormous loop ran counter-clockwise from Cerda, climbing from sea level through Caltavuturo and Collesano at altitudes above 600 metres, then descending back to the north coast with the Buonfornello straight — a flat coastal section said to be longer than the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans — before returning to the start. The highest point of the circuit reached approximately 1,100 metres altitude at Geraci Siculo.

The challenge of the Madonie circuit was without parallel in organised motorsport. The Piccolo course had approximately 800 to 900 corners per lap; the longer Grande circuit contained around 2,000 corners per lap. To put this in perspective, most purpose-built circuits have between 12 and 18 corners total, and even the Nürburgring Nordschleife — at 20 kilometres the longest purpose-built circuit in active use — has approximately 180 corners. Learning a single lap of the Piccolo course required a minimum of 60 practice laps, and drivers had to study the roads in public traffic using road-legal cars fitted with number plates during the week before each race.

Average lap speeds on the Piccolo course never exceeded 80 mph (128 km/h), even with 600-horsepower prototypes, because the density of corners prevented sustained acceleration. The fastest recorded lap was set by Leo Kinnunen in 1970 in a Porsche 908/3, covering the 72 kilometres in 33 minutes 36 seconds at an average of 128.571 km/h (79.890 mph). Helmut Marko set the official race lap record in 1972 in an Alfa Romeo 33TT3 at 33 minutes 41 seconds. Cars were started individually at 15-second intervals, as a grid start was impossible on roads of this nature, making the event a time trial in format regardless of the number of entries.

The Targa Florio was included in the FIA World Sportscar Championship from 1955 to 1973, filling the Italian round of the calendar after the discontinuation of the Mille Miglia following the 1957 disaster at that event. The 1955 race, which brought Mercedes-Benz factory entries onto the Madonie roads for a crucial title decider, ended with a 1–2 finish for the 300 SLR of Stirling Moss and Peter Collins ahead of Juan Manuel Fangio and Karl Kling, securing the World Sportscar Championship title for Mercedes. The manufacturer with the greatest success at the Targa in the postwar era was Porsche, which developed specially adapted machinery including the 908/03 Spyder specifically for the circuit's demands.

By the early 1970s the Madonie circuit was coming under intense scrutiny from the FIA and from racing drivers. Cars with up to 600 horsepower were racing through small mountain villages while spectators stood directly at the roadside or even on the track surface itself. There were insufficient marshals to manage a 72-kilometre course, and the financial and logistical requirements of installing the safety barriers now mandated by the FIA for all championship venues were impossibly large for a circuit of this length and nature. Brian Redman, who crashed his Porsche 908/03 during the 1971 race when his steering failed, lay injured for 45 minutes before medical help reached him. Porsche did not locate him for 12 hours.

The 1973 race, won by a Porsche 911 Carrera RS prototype, was the last to count for the World Sportscar Championship. During that event two drivers were killed and a spectator died when a car hit a group of observers. The race continued as a national Italian sportscar event for four more seasons before a 1977 accident, in which Gabriele Ciuti's car shed bodywork on the Buonfornello straight and killed two spectators, forced its permanent cancellation as a race meeting.

The Targa Florio gave its name to a targa top variant of the Porsche 911 series. The Targa Tasmania, founded in 1992, and analogous events in New Zealand and Newfoundland take their name and format from the Sicilian original. Most of the roads of the Circuito delle Madonie remain in use today as public roads, and the course can still be driven by members of the public, though sections have been affected by landslides. The course's combination of technical difficulty, historical depth, and dramatic Sicilian landscape has made it one of the most mythologised circuits in motorsport history.