You've all heard the saying "which came first, the Chicken or the Egg?" However, let's...update this: "Which Came First Italy or the Autobello?"
Oldest Autobello file is 15th April 2018, but that is engine texture, which probably was not the first file actually created for the project. Concept drawings and 3d models probably came earlier, so it has been in works far longer than that. Did it take years or one year, that we don't know of course, but DAE has this inside of it Blender 2.79.0 commit date:2018-03-22, that is when current DAE was created, I believe, but it is not certainly the first date car was worked on. I would not be surprised if Autobello was started already at 2017. Italy is of course been in works much longer, terrain file is from 2016, 17th November, but there are files from April 2016
I wouldn't be surprised if when the grand marshal was originally designed and modelled, that it was going to be made into a ROR mod, perhaps as a burnside overhaul or something.