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As Santa's home land here in Finland, the Christmas season is a very big deal. Christmas is about festive winter cheer and good spirit with family and friends as opposed to the associated consumer frenzy. The Finnish people, and Scandinavians in general, mark the beginning of the season with Christmas festivals, lights and decorations, and a lot of alcohol – lots of it. However, here at WCF headquarters in Helsinki, the start of the Christmas season makes us warm and fuzzy not because we love Christmas but because it marks the beginning of the winter test season! From now until April, all of the car manufacturers head north towards the arctic circle to Lapland which extends across the top of Norway, Sweden and Finland. With a small army of spy photographers already on location, we bring you our first of many winter testing spy stories to come.

Back in October one of our snappers caught an Audi TT-S, which in itself is a good spy story, but this one was wearing some peculiar coverings across the lower portion of the headlamps signifying LED daytime running lights (DRL) which have been cropping up on new models such as the new A5, RS 6 and A4. And now these latest shots taken in Lapland show a TT Roadster with DRL's on and off. Sources indicate a Geneva debut in March 2008 for the TT-S and its new DRL's.