Polyphony Digital has attached the Gran Turismo name to one of the most prestigious events in all of classic motoring. The studio has organized a new official offshoot of the historic Mille Miglia, called the “1000 Miglia Gran Turismo Experience”, and series creator Kazunori Yamauchi is in Italy right now driving it himself.
An Official Gran Turismo Event on Real Roads
The Mille Miglia (or 1000 Miglia) began as a road race run between Brescia and Rome from 1927 to 1957, and these days it survives as a rally for historic cars, with entry restricted to vehicles which participated in those original races. That exclusivity is part of the appeal, but it also keeps a lot of beautiful machinery on the sidelines.
That is the gap Polyphony has stepped into. The 1000 Miglia Gran Turismo Experience is a new event the studio has organized in collaboration with the Mille Miglia, built specifically to let a wider range of classic cars join the convoy. The 2026 running is the first edition.
It’s a full-circle moment. “Gran Turismo” has always meant grand touring based upon historic European traditions, and now the virtual franchise is lending the name back to an actual grand tour across Italy.
Yamauchi and Hizal Behind the Wheel
Series creator Kazunori Yamauchi is helping to kick off the inaugural event behind the wheel of a classic A80 Toyota Supra.
He is sharing driving with Mikail Hizal, the Turkish-German racer who took the GT Sport Nations Cup world title in Monaco in 2019 with one of the most dominant displays the World Tour has seen. After completing his engineering studies, Hizal is now working for Polyphony Digital.
Lining up for day 1 of the Mille Miglia.
— Mikail Hızal (@HizalMikail) June 9, 2026
We will be driving from Brescia – Viale Venezia to Lumezzane today.
Let’s do this!!! 👊 pic.twitter.com/MEWtu3kd3s
Of course, this is not Yamauchi’s first time on the route, either.
He is a Mille Miglia veteran who has run it before, including a 2019 outing with GT champion Igor Fraga in an Alfa Romeo 4C.
The Supra they are running this year belongs to Toyota, which has used this first Gran Turismo Experience to make its own bit of history. This is the first time a Japanese manufacturer has entered cars in a 1000 Miglia event, and Toyota has brought five of them, including a first-generation Crown RS, Sports 800, 2000GT, A80 Supra, and Lexus LFA.
A Familiar Square…
One stop on the route carries extra weight for long-time readers: the team pulled into the Piazza del Campo in Siena, a name some will recall from the turbulent build-up to Gran Turismo 5’s release.
Piazza del Campo was revealed as a karting track for Gran Turismo 5 in 2010, shown at Gamescom and in a karting trailer with Siena’s famous square recreated in full. The trouble was the flags. They belong to the city’s contrade, the districts that contest the Palio horse race, and Polyphony was alleged to have used them (and references to the Palio itself) without permission. The body that guards the Palio threatened legal action, and Sony agreed to remove the flags.
The flags were only the beginning. By the time GT5 shipped, the entire karting track had quietly disappeared, leaving a photo-mode location and a short cutscene of the city as the only proof it ever existed.
It remains one of the most rare tracks in a modern Gran Turismo title, available only briefly to the public in a Gamescom demo.
What It Might Mean for Gran Turismo
It is tempting to read a partnership like this as a hint of things to come in the games, but it is worth remembering that Polyphony’s track record with real-world tie-ins is mixed at best.
One cautionary tale is Pikes Peak. The famous Colorado hill climb turned up in Gran Turismo 2 in a cut-down form and then disappeared. Polyphony later sponsored the real event and, by 2017, was reported to hold the exclusive rights to it for games. Yamauchi himself said he wanted the climb back in the series. Years and two full games later, it still has not returned.
That said, the Mille Miglia is not just another logo on a sponsor board. This is clearly an event that means a great deal to Yamauchi personally and it sits much closer to the core of what Gran Turismo is than a hill climb event. When a partnership lines up that neatly with a studio’s founding idea, and with its founder’s own enthusiasm, it is not a stretch to imagine there is more to come.
