The Uffizi Hair Gallery proprietor’s Range Rover and Ferrari
MAN & MACHINES
I SUPPOSE BECAUSE of my Italian extraction I always wanted a Ferrari. Years ago, when I was about 15 years old, I walked past a blue Ferrari 308 with my Mum and said to her: ‘One day I’ll have one of those.’ I have now owned my 1999 Ferrari 355 for 15 years. It’s finished in Tour de France blue with Bordeaux hide and is a rare manual. And of course it’s a convertible Spider… I’m a hairdresser!
I fitted a Tubi exhaust system a while ago but it failed the noise test at an Octane trackday at Goodwood, so I’ve put the original pipes back on and now it’s stock throughout. It’s done 50,000 miles, of which I’ve driven 25,000, including trips to Le Mans, Maranello, Lake Como and Florence. It’s a keeper.
I love pretty much anything on wheels, including bicycles, scooters and motorbikes. My first car was a Mk2 Jag, which my mate and I used to drive to school. I’ve also had a beach buggy and lots of Fiats, as well as Alfas, and I recently purchased a Lancia Beta HPE with lime green velour interior, which I keep in Italy.
In the early 1990s my sister was working for an art gallery and her boss picked us up in a Range Rover. I was impressed with the feeling of being driven through London in a lofty gentleman’s club. It was an experience I never forgot. Then, surfing through eBay, I found this one and bought it unseen because it had done only 65,000 miles. My thought was: ‘How rotten can it be?’ Those were the days when Range Rovers were really cheap, so I put in my bid of £1501 and went to bed.
Next morning, I got an email congratulating me on winning the Rangie. ‘Oh no, what have I done?’ I asked myself! I drove to Maidenhead to collect it from the lady owner and immediately noticed the Stratstone of Mayfair sticker in the rear window and that it was full of parking tokens for Kensington and Chelsea. The car must have been garaged because it is almost totally rust-free. I repl
