A few days ago, an avalanche of high-end black vans with tinted windows filled the city of Barcelona, transporting the congressmen of the Mobile World Congress.
From the 'Via lliure' we wanted to get into one of these vehicles to talk with its driver, Jordi Martí, who has been transporting celebrities and people with very high purchasing power in Barcelona for twenty-five years. Personalities such as Madonna, the king of Saudi Arabia, Olivia Newton-John or Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela have passed by his car, and he has told us all the anecdotes!
"Let's run away from the paparazzi!" the bodyguard asked me. Sorry, no. We are in Barcelona and there are traffic rules here, there are traffic lights. "And I risk my career and my job and, therefore, I will not run away or jump a traffic light."
"And all the paraphernalia that the Guàrdia Urbana and the Barcelona City Council set up caught my attention, simply because she had to take a private plane, which could leave at any time she wanted. On the Ronda Litoral during rush hour, the "separate cars, and us at 80 km/h on the shoulder. That was a scandal."
Many years ago I took Prince Salman, who is now the king of Saudi Arabia. We spent a month with him, at the Juan Carlos I hotel, which at that time was his. They wanted me to be his personal driver. He drove his car, an armored vehicle, with remote start in case of a bomb, a gun in the glove compartment... and he had thirty-five cars behind him every time we went out through Barcelona."
"It was thirty-five days of fifteen hours of service a day. It was very hard. The following year they asked me again and I said no."
"Olivia Newton-John marked me. Very nice, she was very nice, she was very interested in the architecture of Barcelona. I didn't know I was carrying her because she was in the back, and I recognized her when they started humming songs. Then, the rest of the group started talking about the Monica Lewinsky case. She must not have been too interested, and started talking to me.
"I felt quite pressured because I had a pilot, I felt quite new. In addition, Sainz was very angry because he arrived in Barcelona an hour and a half late, to a gala dinner organized for him by the RACC. It was after having lost his third world rally title with 700 meters left to go (that of the famous: "Try to start it, Carlos, for God's sake!" by Luis Mola). Clearly, it was not the day to interact with him.
"I've also taken Bill Clinton and his entourage, Nelson Mandela when he came to the AIDS Congress, I've taken Kevin Costner a couple of times, Aerosmith... Although I try to avoid the rock 'n' roll a bit. We've had risks with the integrity of our vehicle, especially for the fans, who jump into the car, throw things at you... Normally, the person in the car who is famous is the one who causes the least problems, the safety environment and the followers are the problematic ones."
This article was originally published on RAC1.
