Italian luxury car maker Maserati launched a mass rally of its sports cars outside the Forbidden City—a race that will travel some 12,000 kilometers to Maserati's home in Italy.

This is the Imperial Ancestral Temple, located just outside Beijing's Forbidden City. Once a place of worship in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the reverence is now on these pricey Italian cars, part of Maserati's "China-Italy Centennial Rally".