  the mille miglia (, thousand miles) was an open-road endurance race which took place in italy twenty-four times from 1927 to 1957 (thirteen before the war, eleven from 1947). like the older targa florio and later the carrera panamericana, the mm made gran turismo (grand touring) sports cars like alfa romeo, bmw, ferrari, maserati, mercedes benz and porsche famous. the race brought out an estimated five million spectators. since 1977, the "mille miglia" has been reborn as a regularity race for classic and vintage cars. participation is limited to cars, produced no later than 1957, which had attended (or were registered) to the original race. the route (brescia-rome round trip) is similar to that of the original race, maintaining the point of departure / arrival in viale venezia in brescia. == car numbering == unlike modern day rallying where cars are released at one minute intervals with the larger professional class cars going before the slower cars, in the mille miglia the smaller displacement slower cars started first. this made organisation simpler as marshalls did not have to be on duty for as long a period and it minimised the period that roads had to be closed. since 1949 cars were assigned numbers according to their start time. for example, the 1955 moss/jenkinson car, #722, left brescia at 07:22 (see below), while the first cars had started at 21:00 the previous day. in the early days of the race even winners needed 16 hours or more, so most competitors had to start before midnight and arrived after dusk - if at all. == pre world war ii ==  the race was established by the young count aymo maggi and franco mazzotti, apparently in response after the italian grand prix had been moved from their home town of brescia to monza. together with a group of wealthy associates, they chose a race from brescia to rome and back, a figure-eight shaped course of roughly 1500&nbsp;km â or a thousand roman miles. later races followed twelve oth
Mille_Miglia Recurring_sporting_events_established_in_1927