I saw her before I could notice the car she was climbing out of, which wouldn’t have been strange had she not been driving a very rare two-tone Bugatti Type 40A ‘Lidia’. She notices my eyes on her and quickly interjects, ‘Sorry, I did park my car quite close to yours!’ I shake my head; nonsense, it is fine. ‘You look fabulous,’ I say. She immediately strikes me as having an energy larger than life. ‘You’re matching your car perfectly.’
She gently squeezes my hand and we exchange names. Julia points at her outfit. ‘This?’, she says. ‘I barely had time to put anything together.’ I remark on how her cardigan is a perfect match for the classic Bugatti yellow of her car, which suggests to me this is no mere coincidence. From the corner of my eye, I also catch the black leather Hermès Birkin bag hanging from her arm, a tyre pressure gauge and a 10mm spanner just peeking out.
Something about it tells me that Julia has spent enough time at the wheel of this car to become old friends. I like to imagine the seats might have moulded to the curve of her back, like an old, comfortable shoe. She confirms this much by telling me the Bugatti has been in her family since the 1930s, having been modified and adapted to their changing needs over the years. She points at each part now different from its original factory guise, and I can’t help but smile. The purists might be clutching at their pearls, but Julia and her Type 40A are diamonds in my book.
