When Nicola Bulgari answers the phone at his Tuscan villa, he sounds excited. ‘Yesterday we were out with 38 of the cars from the collection. We spent the day driving around Tuscany, all together, swapping cars once in a while. Everything was wonderful, the roads were magic and there was no traffic at all. And, a fact I love to underline, no car suffered a mechanical breakdown.’
This gentleman, now in his 80s, has a lifelong love for American cars from the 1920s to the 1940s. He not only collects them but creates places to restore them and maintain them, and also promotes their historical heritage.
Unlike some other collectors, Bulgari has an important stipulation: all his cars have to be ready to drive at short notice. ‘I don’t understand collectors keeping their cars dead,’ he says. ‘Pure knick-knacks that can’t turn a wheel for longer than it takes to load them onto a trailer. To drive a classic car is not
