Miranda Seymour: Bugatti Queen

Daring female driver Hellé Nice

Even if you have never thrilled to the drone of powerful cars jockeying for position on a racetrack, writes London's Literary Review, Miranda Seymour's biography of the daring female driver Hellé Nice will have you riveted to your seat. Indeed, the story of this record-shattering woman-known as Hellish Nice to her fans and Hell on Ice to her rivals-provides a fascinating and unexpected view of Europe and America in the years between the wars.

Hellé Nice in the Parisian demimonde

Transcending her provincial background, and taking the name Hellé Nice, Hélène Delangle made her way into the Parisian demimonde of the 1920s as a nude model, ballerina, and cabaret dancer. But it was on the racetrack, thrilled by the combination of machinery and speed, that Hellé Nice would realize her destiny, becoming the fastest woman in the world.

Ettore Bugatti

Catching the attention of the formidable Ettore Bugatti, designer of the world's most desirable cars, Hellé Nice gained admission to the exclusive male club of drivers. Her readiness to pose for the camera with seductively half-closed eyes and a radiant smile, coupled with her willingness to risk her life for a record or a win, made Hellé Nice an irresistible commodity for Bugatti's marque. Impenitently promiscuous, her many lovers ranged from engineers and mechanics to aristocrats of the racing world such as Baron Philippe de Rothschild and Count Bruno d'Harcourt.

Hellé Nice competed in numerous Grand Prix

A racer of thrilling audacity, Hellé Nice competed in numerous Grand Prix, was the only woman to drive the treacherous American dirt tracks and speed-bowls in the 1930s, and set new land-speed records until a notorious accident in Brazil nearly ended her racing career. Her comeback impeded bythe war, she lived out the Occupation in the South of France. In 1949, Hellé Nice was mysteriously denounced by a hostile fellow driver as a Gestapo agent. Eventually, Hellé Nice would die in obscurity, the shadow on her reputation causing her name to be written out of racing history.

International racing and life

Drawn from a remarkable cache of newly discovered papers, Miranda Seymour's Bugatti Queen sheds new light on both the treacherous world of international racing and life in Occupied France, while revealing the story of a fearless and passionate woman who lived for challenge.

By Miranda Seymour

Bugatti Queen: In Search of a French Racing Legend by Miranda Seymour
ISBN: 1400061687

More information

Speed, Style, And Beauty