Autostrade per l'Italia is celebrating a unique milestone: the 100th anniversary of the world's first highway, the A8 Milan-Varese. Also known as the Autostrada dei Laghi, it was inaugurated by King Vittorio Emanuele III in a Lancia Trikappa on September 21, 1924, when there were only 60,000 cars in all of Italy.

It was built by the Milanese entrepreneur Pietro Puricelli (who also designed the Monza Autodrome) and was the first toll freeway reserved for the fast transport of goods and people on wheels. Today the stretch is traveled by an average of 120,000 vehicles a day.

To mark the occasion, celebrations and a vintage car rally were held last weekend; commemorative messages were also broadcast on the entire highway network. The anniversary was celebrated at the historic Autogrill Villoresi Ovest outlet as a landmark location for the highway and a crucial landmark for local economic development. It is the most photographed Autogrill in the world, an icon of made-in-Italy modernism. A symbol of Italy's economic rebirth that, in the 1960s, went so far as to earn the cover of Life magazine.