A personal message from Santa!

Italy has an important tradition of auto d'epoca (vintage cars) and auto da corsa (race cars) and RAI TV has dedicated a documentary series to this topic. This first segment is introduced by former racing driver René Arnoux, who competed in 12 Formula One seasons. You might notice his French accent. It also features Silvia Nicolis, daughter of the collector of vintage cars, Luciano Nicolis.

There are a great many unique automobiles in the collection. In the early twentieth century, there was no metallic paint, so other solutions were found to produce a special finish, such as Lunar Chrome, a technique using mother of pearl and fish scales.

The passion for vintage cars can become a real disease. Being the owner of a car and being a collector are two different things.

We see the underside of a Ferrari as an inspection is carried out. Carmine Sessa, a classic car expert, talks about the Spider model and the Daytona model, which was built in a limited quantity, almost exclusively for the American market. Fun "fact": Some say the yellow color was named Fly, standing for "Ferrari Light yellow." The color was suggested by Fiamma Breschi (a close friend of Enzo Ferrari's). Fiamma means "flame" but she didn't want the color to be Giallo Fiamma "flame yellow" (named after her) and suggested "fly."

Every serious vintage car collector must have a Ferrari Daytona. Some of the characteristics of this car are described in this segment.

The revision of the Ferrari Daytona Spider continues. The result gives the car extra value on the vintage market.

For its time, the Ferrari Daytona Spider was incredible to drive, with its twelve-cylinder engine and impressive horsepower.

We take a look at the Maserati Khamsin, produced during the oil crisis of the nineteen seventies. It didn't need much restoring and was particularly comfortable.

We continue to look at the Maserati Khamsin model, which got its name from the Egyptian desert wind and has always been a symbol of aristocracy.

This segment looks at the intimate relationship between a collector and the car. Sometimes price doesn't matter.

We look at a Maserati Khamsin, in almost mint condition, something extremely rare. In addition, the power steering and braking are very evolved for a car from the seventies, and can be considered on a par with modern cars.

Here are two cars symbolizing the dream of many Italians: The Ferrari Testarossa and the Autobianchi Bianchina. Let's discover their stories.

The Testarossa (literally "red head") is considered to be a supercar par excellence. For a brief period, it was the fastest production model in the world.

René Arnoux is back, telling us more about the Ferrari Testa Rossa, and some interesting facts about the evolution of the name. He also mentions the famed TV series, Miami Vice.