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More about Chopard Mille Miglia Watches

The Mille Miglia (Thousand Miles in Italian) 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, Ferrari, Maserati and Porsche famous. 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 minimized the period that roads had to be closed. Cars were assigned numbers according to their start time. For example, the 1955 Moss/Jenkinson car left Brescia at 7:22 AM, while the first cars had started at 9 PM 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. The race was banned after a fatal crash in 1957 that took the lives of driver Alfonso de Portago, his co-driver/navigator, and eleven spectators, at the village of Guidizzolo. The crash was probably caused by a blown tire. The manufacturer was blamed and sued for this, as was the Ferrari team, which, in order to save time, had not changed tires. From 1958 to 1961, the event resumed as a Rallying-like round trip at legal speeds with a few special stages driven at full speed, but this was discontinued too. Since 1977, the name was revived as the Mille Miglia Storica, a parade for pre-1957 cars that takes several days. Chopard started as a sponsor and official time keeper of Mille Miglia Storica and ended up with the rights of using the name of the event. The watch maker registered the Mille Miglia trademark and started to produce a collection of exceptional timepieces: the Chopard Mille Miglia Gran Turismo XL Watches. The partnership between the Mille Miglia rally and Chopard watches started in 1988, and the Chopard watch company seems to have made a tradition from launching one or more new special edition Chopard Mille Miglia Gran Turismo XL Watches yearly. The materials that are used in the manufacture of the Chopard Mille Miglia Gran Turismo XL Watches are always of the highest quality. Chopard Mille Miglia watches traditionally come with Dunlop-tire-inspired watch straps in Vulcanized rubber. The oversize cases and highly legible dials are hallmarks of this enduring watch series. Each year Chopard manufactures one or more limited edition series, the volume of which is denominated by the current year, e.g. in 2008, 2008 timepieces were manufactured of the Limited Edition Chopard Mille Miglia XL. These limited series are highly collectible and usually bought up by collectors and watch afficianados within weeks of release. In fact, many Mille Miglias trade at or above retail value in the aftermarket.