The course started in Scarperia and ran north along the SP503 through mountain terrain and multiple villages, climbing to the town of Firenzuola. From Firenzuola it turned west toward the village of Pagliana before heading south on the SR65 through Covigliaio, Selva, and Traversa. This section included the famous Futa Pass, a route also used by the Mille Miglia. After descending past a German military cemetery (established 1946) the course rejoined faster roads and straights through Le Maschere and Colle Barucci, crossing a bridge over a narrow section of Bilancino Lake. The lap concluded by heading north on the SP503 back to Scarperia.
The circuit ran anticlockwise and passed through the towns of San Piero a Sieve, Scarperia, Violla, Firenzuola, Selva, and San Lucia. Roads were closed only on race day and for qualifying; at all other times they remained open to ordinary traffic.
Competitive racing at Mugello on public roads dates to 1920. Giuseppe Campari won the inaugural race that year and repeated in 1921. Emilio Materassi took three victories: 1925, 1926, and 1928. The event was then dormant for many years before being revived in 1955.
The Mugello Grand Prix returned on the road circuit from 1964 to 1969 as a major international event run over eight laps of the full 66.2 km course. The race counted toward the World Sportscar Championship in 1965, 1966, and 1967.
Porsche dominated the championship-counting editions. The last World Championship race held on the road circuit, in 1967, was won by Udo Schutz and Gerhard Mitter in a Porsche 910. After two Porsche victories in the championship era, 1968 saw an Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 take the win, with Luciano Bianchi, Nanni Galli, and Nino Vaccarella defeating the Porsche of Rico Steinemann and Jo Siffert.
In 1969, Arturo Merzario won driving an Abarth 2000, and he repeated the victory in 1970 with the same car. Abarth finished first, second, and third in that final edition, with Leo Kinnunen and Gijs van Lennep completing the podium sweep.
The 1970 race proved to be the last held on the public road layout. During a private test at Firenzuola — when the roads were open to normal traffic, not closed as they would be for official sessions — driver Spartaco Dini crashed his Alfa Romeo GTA into a group of bystanders. A seven-month-old baby was killed and four other people, including two young children, were seriously injured. Although only one previous fatality had occurred at the original Mugello circuit (Gunther Klass in 1967), the Firenzuola incident catastrophically damaged the event's public standing. The 1970 race went ahead as planned and was won by Merzario, but no further races were organised on the road circuit. Dini served two months in prison and subsequently left Italy for an extended period.
The 66.2 km road circuit was replaced by a purpose-built permanent track, the present Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello, constructed in 1973 and opened in 1974 approximately five kilometres east of the easternmost section of the old road layout. The permanent circuit, 5.245 km in length, has been owned by Scuderia Ferrari since 1988 and serves as the venue for the Italian MotoGP and hosted its first Formula One race as the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix.
The original road circuit represents the broader Italian road-racing tradition of the mid-twentieth century, sharing its character with the Targa Florio and the Mille Miglia as events that threaded race cars through ordinary mountain communities, ultimately discontinued as the gap between racing speeds and public-road safety infrastructure became untenable.
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