Vanessa-Mae now has her licence. And she still has her British Racing Green Lotus. In her mind it is an indicator off all she loves about her adopted homeland. "I have been living here since I was three so there are some things I appreciate. Like rain. Like the Lotus. It's eccentrically British," she says.
Vanessa-Mae has two other passions: skiing and her cuddly creased hairball of a Shar Pei called Gaspard. Both regularly relegate the racing green machine to the garage, she tells me.
Vanessa-Mae's daily runabouts are Audis (for whom she is a VIP ambassador). "The TT I actually bought," she clarifies. "It was great. I used that to go to the studio. I never got picked up by the police in that. Until my TT I had never driven an automatic. I could never get the hand of the paddleshift I am afraid. I got Lionel a TT as a present."
Lionel still has his TT. But Vanessa-Mae, to accommodate the 25kg Gaspard, has upgraded to an estate. "People say: why did you want to get an estate car? Well, we drive to France or Switzerland to go skiing, and because I don't want to put my dog in cargo on the aeroplane we have to bloody drive for hours, just for the dog. To have a four-wheel-drive S4 Avant is just great. I prefer my S4 Avant (to the TT). It's more powerful. Once the engine's warmed up it sounds amazing. The minute I put my foot on the pedal it just flies."
Vanessa-Mae has always felt a need for speed. She wanted to ski professionally, and even after reaching stardom as a violinist, toyed with the idea of using her Thai parentage to represent Thailand in the Winter Olympics. But not even bombing down an alp at 70mph compares to her ultimate thrill - a ride in a two-seat McLaren at the Australian GP a few years ago.
"I was not used to the G-Forces and being a passenger you can't see what's going on," she remembers. "What I remember is smelling hot dog stands as we went round! They give you a trigger button and if you are getting a bit sick or frightened, you have to let go and it gives a message to the driver to slow down. I thought I can't be a chicken, so I knew I had to keep it completely depressed and so we went flat out, you know."
The conversation swings back to her violin for a second. I had heard that her own instrument is worth more than almost any car. She quickly clarifies things. "Two hundred and fifty thousand. That's like nothing," she dismisses before steering us back onto car talk. "That is like the smallest budget Formula One team. Most people's violins are like £1 million, £2 million..."
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