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.”
She wasn't explaining technical specifications. She wanted people to experience the excitement with her.
“For me, I've always loved driving. It's less about the cars; it's about driving. Driving has always meant freedom to me.
“I would see them [supercars] everywhere [in Dubai], and it gave me this goal that maybe I otherwise wouldn't have had if I had been back home or somewhere else. Well, if all these people can drive a Ferrari or a Lamborghini, I can too.
“So I think Dubai gave me this personal ambition. This drive to set my goals even higher than I would have somewhere else. One day I'm going to own a supercar. I don't know how, but I'm going to. This is exciting, this is amazing.”
She calls supercars “the jewellery of the road”.
The woman who didn't belong
Two months after she quit her radio job, her Instagram account was hacked. She lost access for a while.
“Here I am, with no job, no Instagram page, everything's gone, and I'm like, well, what have I done?”
There was hostility from parts of the automotive community, too.
At events, she was often the only woman. People whispered about her. Some questioned her place among the experts.
“You don't belong here. You don't even own a nice car,” she recalls being told.
“I know I don't. But I'm here to experience them and show the world.
“Sometimes I felt very isolated, and I felt very stressed having to walk into these events.”
But she continued turning up.
“I've never… once I put my mind to something, I'm not going to give up.”
The work was relentless. She studied video editing down to fractions of a second, knowing viewers could disappear if an opening failed to catch their attention.
Brands began recognising her professionalism. She arrived on time, followed briefs and delivered videos when promised. Social media was not a hobby.
“I came from a very serious job. I was a journalist and I took my job very seriously.”
The business and the $100 million decision
Before the pandemic, Hirschi was travelling around 300 days a year, hunting down rare cars across the world. Covid-19 stopped that overnight.
She realised her entire operation depended on her being able to travel and film.
So she decided to expand the content creation pool. She asked followers to send videos of unusual cars they could access. She hired presenters, editors and eventually journalists.
By 2021, she says, the media team had grown to around 30 people, with an office on Palm Jumeirah.
The business expanded into an automotive editorial website, allowing stories to be produced without Hirschi appearing on camera.
Then came SBX Cars, a platform connecting buyers and sellers of collectible vehicles.
Hirschi says one car sold for $5 million within months of the platform's launch.
Around 2021 or 2022, she and her then-husband rejected an offer of approximately $100 million for their media business. “I wasn't ready to hand over my baby.” She knew she could make that sum herself.
She says she and her husband decided to separate last year. The upheaval affected SBX Cars, and the auction operation was closed, although the business continued arranging private sales.
At the time of the interview, Hirschi said she was working towards taking ownership of the company with an investor. “I'm ready for the next chapter.”
What fame cost her
Hirschi doesn't romanticise the years of building Supercar Blondie. In 2017, friends would arrange dinners and trips. She rarely joined them.
She remembers missing a long-awaited dinner because a car was being lifted by crane onto a Dubai building in the middle of the night. She waited until 2am to film it and had only one take to get it right.
“I constantly put content in front of my personal life.”
She lost friendships. Anxiety followed. In 2020, she was diagnosed with depression after a period of severe burnout. She developed an autoimmune condition during those stressful years.
“I sacrificed a lot, a lot. Looking back, I think I probably could have taken it a little bit easier.”
People wanted photographs, but she found it increasingly difficult to form genuine relationships.
“You never really get to connect with people. You just get a photo and then that's it, and it felt empty inside.”
She stopped meeting new people and often went straight home after filming. Having other presenters front the brand eventually gave her more privacy. She welcomes it.
The dogs that saved her
There are six dogs in Hirschi's life - Mugi, Peppi, Quinn, Juku, Tony and Ruby. Her attachment to animal rescue grew from grief.
During one of her darkest periods, her dog Pumpkin was a constant source of comfort. Pumpkin died in 2019.
“She really was a light in my life, and she got me through so many hard times.” Her death made an already difficult period worse.
Hirschi promised Pumpkin that future dogs would come from rescue organisations. During the pandemic, she adopted Peppi, a dog she had repeatedly seen advertised for adoption. He was initially aggressive.
“It just took love and patience over a number of years, and now he's the most docile and beautiful dog. And I just think that's something beautiful that you can give to people or dogs or animals is that kind of love and trust, and make them feel that they're okay.” As her income grew, she also began donating to animal rescue organisations in the UAE.
“My dog saved my life.”
Why Dubai matters
For Hirschi, Dubai's influence is its people. “I think what makes Dubai so special is that everyone is here because they want to be here.”
She describes a city filled with people who have left their home countries to pursue something.
“If you get that energy that surrounds you the whole time, of people who are excited and are here for a purpose and a reason, that rubs off on you.”
Her father, who passed away recently, was her biggest supporter. He would introduce himself to strangers by asking whether they knew Supercar Blondie.
“That's my daughter,” he would tell them. Her mother remains a devoted supporter.
Hirschi is still working, still planning, still asking what comes next. But her advice to the 22-year-old who arrived in Dubai is different from what it might once have been.
“Don't rush life.”
She spent her twenties and thirties chasing the next achievement.
“I'm really only now seeing that life is beautiful, and I need to have that balance. We can all be successful. Let's go.”
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Anupa Kurian is a Dubai-based senior editor and writer with nearly 28 years in journalism. She has been a food editor. Anupa writes across gastronomy, culture, health, environment and the people who make a city what it is, drawn to stories that reveal themselves in the details.