Mille Miglia - Car Numbering

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 7:22 a.m. (see below), while the first cars had started at 9 p.m. 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.