Tazio Nuvolari in his Alfa Romeo being pushed to the start the 1931 Mille Miglia, a rare professionally taken photograph, the 5 by 7in. monochrome per

Tazio Nuvolari in his Alfa Romeo being pushed to the start the 1931 Mille Miglia, a rare professionally taken photograph, the 5 by 7in. monochrome period print mounted above a hand-written title in Italian script on a page taken from an album of that period The photo shows Nuvolari, the previous year's race winner, steering his car carefully through a mass of officials, press and military personnel, his co-driver/mechanic Battista Guidotti helping push from behind the right-front wing. It marks the debut of Vittorio Jano's classic design, the Tipo 8C 2300, a car that was then untried in competition. Unfortunately its power proved too much for the Pirelli tyres and poor Guidotti was forced to change them 18 times. Despite this, Nuvolari led the 1000-mile Italian roadrace at half distance, before falling back and finishing 9th after almost 18 hours at the wheel. By then he was nursing a heavily bandaged mouth after accidentally cutting it against the windscreen.