Dubai-it: Iconic auto blogger Supercar Blondie on the $100 million she refused, the price of fame and the city that changed her life

Dubai: Alex Hirschi remembers the moment she knew she could never go back to her old job. She was driving a Ferrari 488 GTB through the desert, somewhere between the Saudi border and Dubai. There were around 60 supercars in the convoy. A McLaren was ahead of her, a Lamborghini behind. Police vehicles escorted the rally, with a helicopter overhead. “Who gets to experience this? This is beyond. This is another life. I've never seen anything like it.” The next day, she called her boss and resigned. It was early 2017. Hirschi was a Dubai radio presenter with around 50,000 Instagram followers. Today, her Instagram account has 17.3 million followers. Across her platforms, she says her audience exceeds 135 million worldwide. Yet the woman who has driven some of the world's most expensive cars remembers returning them and climbing into her rented car. Dubai-based Alex Hirschi, better known as Supercar Blondie, has transformed automotive content for a global audience. She brings viewers behind the wheel of extraordinary Ferraris, Lamborghinis, McLarens, Bentleys and other exotic supercars through a “layman’s” approach that challenged traditional motoring journalism. The girl from Boonah Hirschi grew up in Boonah, a small Australian town south of Brisbane. Her father was the local lawyer. The family also had a farm. She moved to Brisbane for secondary school, spent time in Switzerland on an exchange programme at 17, and later studied journalism and business, including a university exchange in Hong Kong. “I always loved storytelling. And I'm a very factual person,” she says. “As soon as I went into journalism, I loved it.” Dubai had already caught her imagination. Around 2005, she watched a documentary about the Burj Al Arab and the city's determination to build things differently. “They wanted to do it the best, and they wanted to do things differently. And we thought that looks really exciting and fun.” She and her then-husband considered visiting Dubai on their honeymoon. Instead, his job brought them here in 2008, shortly after she graduated. She was 22. They knew nobody. “We'd had no money. We were looking for an apartment, and we were just like, ‘Oh my God, we can't afford anything!’” Hirschi couldn't find steady work. She took occasional presenting assignments before her husband's transfer took them to Singapore, where she landed her first television job, covering property and financial markets. When he was transferred back to Dubai, she initially stayed behind. “I have my first ever job. I don't want to go back. This has taken me so long to get my first job.” Four months later, she returned to Dubai. The Burj Khalifa magic By early 2010, the couple had moved into an apartment near the Burj Khalifa. Hirschi was fascinated by the tower. Even today, her villa has a view of it. Friends even give her birthday presents bearing its image. “For me, it kind of represented this exciting new life and new possibility, and Dubai reaching to be the best it can possibly be.” She remembers driving through sand to reach their apartment in Business Bay, long before the roads and buildings that surround it today. She became a receptionist at a bank. “I needed the money. At some point, you go, ‘Look, we need to pay the bills.’” She lasted a little over a year. “It was just brain numbing. There was no challenge.” Then she heard a radio advertisement seeking news presenters. She contacted Dubai Eye and began freelancing in 2012, reporting news for Dubai Eye, Virgin Radio and Dubai 92. The shifts were irregular. The money was limited. But she loved the work. She eventually became a morning news presenter on Dubai Eye's Business Breakfast programme, and secured a co-hosting role. She remembers looking at the photographs of presenters on the station wall and thinking, “That's going to be me one day.” The Bentley that started everything Her radio work took her to local car launches. Bentley offered her a press car for a weekend. She had never experienced anything like it. “I didn't have any Instagram followers at all. I just had my personal account. But I was so excited about the opportunity that of course I posted about it.” She loved the experience and approached Ferrari next. Soon she was borrowing cars on weekends, filming herself driving them and uploading the videos while keeping her full-time radio job. In fact, the name Supercar Blondie has its origins in her radio career. “So I was Radio Blondie on the radio. Because my co-host called me ‘blondie’ … because of my hair. Then I switched from radio to supercars. So I was like, switch the name out. I think it's empowering. Being a blonde is great, and it's always been kind of put down. People are like, ‘Oh, you're blonde, you're dumb’. Actually, let's re-empower the world. Blondes are great, and there's nothing bad about being a blonde. I wanted to make sure that it was an empowering thing, not a put down. “I had never driven a luxury car before. I had never driven a supercar.” H