Bugatti Queen: In Search of a French Racing Legend

Bugatti Queen: In Search of a French Racing Legend
- Used Book in Good Condition
â€œEven if you have never thrilled to the drone of powerful cars jockeying for position on a racetrack,â€ writes Londonâ€™s Literary Review, â€œMiranda Seymourâ€™s biography of the daring female driver HellÃ© Nice will have you riveted to your seat.â€ Indeed, the story of this record-shattering womanâ€“known as â€œHellish Niceâ€ to her fans and â€œHell on Iceâ€ to her rivalsâ€“provides a fascinating and unexpected view of Europe and America in the years between the wars.

Transcending her provincial background, and taking the name â€œHellÃ© Nice,â€ HÃ©lÃ¨ne 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 Nice would realize her destiny, becoming the â€œfastest woman in the world.â€

Catching the attention of the formidable Ettore Bugatti, designer of the worldâ€™s most desirable cars, 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 HellÃ© Nice an irresistible commodity for Bugattiâ€™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 dâ€™Harcourt.

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

Drawn from a remarkable cache of newly discovered papers, Miranda Seymourâ€™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.
Country USA
Brand Random House Books for Young Readers
Manufacturer Random House
Binding Hardcover
ReleaseDate 2004-12-07
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781400061686

Country	USA
Brand	Random House Books for Young Readers
Manufacturer	Random House
Binding	Hardcover
ReleaseDate	2004-12-07
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781400061686

Bugatti Queen: In Search of a French Racing Legend

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