Feature: Italy's Mille Miglia vintage car race combines exclusive luxury with popular passion

Many of the crew who took part in iconic Mille Miglia (1,000 Miles), Italy's regularity race for vintage cars, said they believed the 2015 edition to be one of the best in recent years.

"I had never driven a car built in 1928 before," Giulia De Toni, pilot of a Lancia Lambda, told Xinhua while driving her car in the last leg after more than 1,600 km of roads through cities of art and natural landscape in Italy.

De Toni, a professional rally driver who currently places first in the Italian Female Rally Championship season, said she was excited to take part in a race that in the 1950s was defined by Enzo Ferrari, founder of the legendary Italian car maker Ferrari, as the "most beautiful race in the world."

"Driving such a car poses very interesting challenges. You need to be precise and patient, and also have a good navigator who helps you," De Toni noted as she crossed the finish line in Brescia, a city in northern Italy, on Sunday.

Her Lancia Lambda was among the 438 classic cars at the start belonging to 61 brands, from Mercedes-Benz and Alfa Romeo with 38 cars each to Jaguar with 36 cars, Fiat with 34 cars, Porsche and Lancia with 30 and 22 cars.

Mille Miglia is the first race in the world to have surpassed the number of the editions of the original race that took place 24 times from 1927 to 1957. It was suspended for safety reasons following a tragic accident in which nine spectators including numerous children besides the pilot and co-pilot lost their lives.

Two decades later in 1977, the Mille Miglia was revived as a regularity race for vintage cars, with participation limited to automobiles that were manufactured prior to 1957 and in particular those which had taken part in the historical race.

The open-road route is from Brescia to Rome, the Italian capital, back and forth, the same one as the original race.

This year for the first time competitors also challenged in some time trials at the Monza circuit, including the high speed section, also known as the "banked curve," near Milan as a special tribute to the ongoing world exposition Expo Milano 2015.

Among the participants there was Stefano Marzotto, sixth-generation descendant of a family who has always had strong links with Mille Miglia.

"My father and his three brothers were gentleman drivers of Ferrari with a passion for Mille Miglia. In fact my uncle Giannino was the only driver to win the race twice in 1950 and 1953," Marzotto, President of the family's holding Zignago, explained to Xinhua in an interview at the finish line.

These four brothers made their mark on European motor racing history often beating the greatest drivers of the day such as Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss.

The Marzotto family has businesses in the textile, clothing and glassmaker industry, as well as in the wine sector.

"We have always considered business and sports as similar challenges, something that you have to strive for with dedication and passion in order to get to the finish line," Marzotto highlighted.

This year the Marzotto family celebrates the 80th foundation anniversary of its Santa Margherita Wine Group, one of the largest private wine houses in Italy, thus decided to become the Mille Miglia's main wine sponsor.

"We are honoring the family tradition that regards competition as a fundamental school of business by sponsoring the 2015 and 2016 editions," Marzotto told Xinhua.

Every year, nearly 3,000 applicants vie for over 400 places in the Mille Miglia. Aspiring drivers and cars come from all over the world, including the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain and more recently China as well. Endit