How does Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti) elucidate its Description?
In 1928, De Lempicka was commissioned to make a self-portrait for the cover of the German fashion magazine Die Dame. The painting she produced showed her at the wheel of a Bugatti racing car, wearing a leather helmet and gloves and wrapped in a gray scarf. She portrayed herself as a personification of cold beauty, independence, wealth and inaccessibility. In fact she did not own a Bugatti automobile; her own car was a small yellow Renault, which was stolen one night when she and her friends were celebrating at Café de la Rotonde in Montparnasse.
Although De Lempicka's portrait shows the steering wheel on the left side of the car, the Bugatti models 23, 43 and 46  of that period actually had the steering wheel on the right side.
Die Dame Café de la Rotonde Montparnasse self-portrait Renault Bugatti