In 2001 Maserati under new ownership from Fiat Ferrari had just cleared quality and safety tests to return to selling cars in the United States and was preparing to launch its Giugiaro designed Spyder at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

To celebrate the moment Maserati and Giugiaro's Italdesign firm considered a racing car series but limited finances meant transforming an existing 3200 GT into a single racing prototype instead wearing the colors of the historic American Cunningham team. The result was the 320 S which workshop owner Marcello Candini believes helped inspire later barchetta projects like the Ferrari Monza and McLaren Elva. Presented at the Geneva Motor Show by Ferrari president Luca Cordero di Montezemolo the plan for a single make championship never materialized leaving this as the only example ever built. The car has a shortened wheelbase deleted passenger seats and an exposed roll bar with safety equipment from Sparco including quick fill fuel nozzles and a fire extinguishing system while Michelin supplied tires long since used up. Power comes from a twin turbocharged all aluminum 3.2 liter V8 producing 370 horsepower and a top speed near 300 kilometers per hour.

Candini has owned and enjoyed the car for over a decade restoring its electrical braking and engine systems along the way and even discussed its creation directly with Giorgetto and Fabrizio Giugiaro who thanked him for preserving a car they believed was lost. He hopes to one day bring it to the Goodwood Festival of Speed or Pebble Beach but for now driving it around Modena suits him fine.

The Alfa Romeo 1900 M known as the Matta is essentially an Italian Jeep built for military use in the early 1950s before being adapted for civilian duties and later becoming a favorite among collectors of odder Alfas.

Owner Beppe a leading connoisseur of the model believes that seventy years after its design the Matta would still outperform modern off roaders like the Alfa Stelvio or a new Land Rover because so many overland vehicles today are padded and detached from real off road duty. His passion began as a child at his family's countryside estate near Florence where his father's Matta sat abandoned in an old garage after poorly executed repairs until Beppe eventually disassembled and restored it himself. He was drawn to the car's artisanal production and its history of raids and heroic expeditions rather than foreign alternatives like the Willys. Great Britain once tried to buy fifteen thousand Mattas for its armed forces though the deal fell through before scale production could begin.

Beppe now considers himself among the world's foremost experts having spent twenty years restoring these cars to full original fidelity under the guidance of his mentor Franco Melotti. Fewer than one hundred well restored Mattas are believed to survive today scattered mostly across Italy with a few examples in Belgium Holland Switzerland and Greece. For Beppe the Matta is less about speed and comfort and more about slow traveling through panoramic countryside connected to the road in a way modern comforts rarely allow.