Tour de France
Traipsing the French countryside with classic vintage cars, Dana Koh joins the Richard Mille Rallye des Princesses for a BAZAAR exclusive
Driving fast through wide emerald pastures with the wind in your hair. Getting lost in charming little towns on long summer days. Basking in sunlight that streaks through the forest canopy... Cruising through the French countryside is nothing short of cinematic—even more so when the scene is set by a str ing of beautiful vintage cars on an open road. For motorsports enthusiasts, the peak of summer signals the arr ival of cross-country drives and car races across Europe, but the Richard Mille Rallye des Princesses is by far the most fabulous. It’s an all-women vintage car rally that journeys 1,600km through France, from the capital of Paris to sparkling Saint-Tropez in the French Riviera, and there is no other voyage quite like this one.
RHYTHM OF THE ROAD
Flourishing foliage, cyan skies, and 90 exquisite vintage cars—from legendary sports cars like Ferrari 328 GTS and vintage road cars, to Porsche 356s and 911s—lined the inner walls of Place Vendôme. The flag-off scene of this year’s Richard Mille Rallye des Princesses was a picture of sporting elegance with allfemale crews in matching ensembles, checking under the hood of their classic cars, and marking their road maps with nail polish-shaped highlighters that came in the drivers’ welcome pack. Then, like starlings leaving the nest, they set off, one by one about a minute apart, forming a traffic-stopping train of gaily-coloured automobiles. Much like a long-distance marathon, the beauty of this rally is that it prioritises consistent rhythm over speed, with regularity tests on every leg of the drive helping to keep its racers
on track. The first day alone included four on a 350km course spanning the castlelined Loiret; waterfront countryside around Briare; and the quiet villages of Indre and historical Cheravent.
This is why, beyond a test of driving performance, many consider this a journey of endurance, precision and trust, for drivers and co-drivers have to simultaneously track their chronometer and road book on winding paths that don’t even show up on a GPS map. Go too fast and your early arr ival might result in point penalties. Go too slow and you might just lose count of when or where to make a turn; which will then result in driving for miles in the wrong direction before finding a wide enough spot to make a three-point U-turn. That being said, if this tr ip teaches you anything, it’s that getting lost is part of the grand adventure, leading you to places you would never otherwise get a chance to stop in—be it to recalibrate and smell the roses, snap photographs of idyllic landscapes, or chat up the locals, many of whom put out deck chairs by the roadside just to watch the cars whizz through their charming, little town.
GOING THE DISTANCE
The best seats in the house, however, belonged to the drivers. Just imagine trailing a convoy of beautiful convertibles on a snaking road flanked by pine tree forests. The scene is nothing short of cinematic. And as the rally progressed, so did the views. At one point, the cars climbed as high as 1,860m as they made their way around the Central French Alps, before descending toward Côte d’Azur, the Mediterranean coast of southeastern France— the penultimate stop of this five-day voyage. It was here in Saint-Tropez that the cars crossed the finish line in glamorous style, with team 81 in a Porsche 911 bagging top spot.
MAN ON THE MOVE
So why a woman’s vintage car rally? Many have wondered about luxury watchmaker Richard Mille’s participation in it all. It is no secret the man behind the eponymous brand is obsessed with performance, as epitomised by his boundary-breaking horology that arm celebrities like sports superstars Rafael Nadal and Bubba Watson, to music moguls like Pharrell Williams and Kanye West. A glimpse of his garage, too, reveals a showcase of stellar engineering, with vintage super cars such as the Ferrari 512M and Lola T70. On the connection between the two, he says: “Ladies’ watches are most like classic cars, because they have elegant, sexy lines of beautiful bodywork, but underneath the hood it is all about technique, power and precision.That is not only our idea of the perfect ladies’ watch, it is also our idea of the perfect lady.” Now, isn’t that good to know?