Cruising With the Top Down

“I love being the blond in the convertible,” says Shane McCoy. “It’s everyone’s fantasy of Southern California.” She certainly has the right car for the role. A former editorial assistant at Vanity Fair who presently works for photographer Michel Comte, McCoy tools between town and her Malibu home in a 2001 silver Audi TT Roadster straight out of Central Casting. “The controls are perfect,” she purrs, including, of course, the gear shift, which McCoy had to master when she got the car. “Now, I can’t imagine driving anything else.”

And McCoy, 29, loves to drive: “When I turned 16, I didn’t get a new car; my mom got a new car and I got a red Chrysler station wagon.” She drove it back and forth from Los Angeles to college in Connecticut. “I ran that car into the ground.”

An old-line Angeleno with L.A. roots for five generations on her father’s side and four on her mother’s, McCoy blends classic understatement with a made-in-Hollywood California-girl aesthetic. She wears turquoise earrings by her friend Jennifer Porter, Marc Jacobs jeans (“always”), a trench by Chaiken and Capone and Beatle Boots. “Planet Blue [in Malibu] and Yellow [in Hollywood] are probably my favorite stores right now.” She also favors cuff bracelets and often wears a suede cuff trimmed with turquoise and coral that she stitched herself. “It was supposed to be a bookmark,” she says, “but it turned into a bracelet.” For the open road, McCoy pays playful homage to her family background in the wintertime with an English driving cap whose inside label reads, “Made in England, Exclusively for Brooks Brothers.” “I got it from my dad,” she says.

As for being the blond in the convertible, “It’s role-playing. When you’re on PCH, you figure most of the people out there are driving Chryslers with a sticker from Budget on the back. They’re visiting, and it’s fun to embody something iconic. Fortunately, the car is design enough and retro enough that I don’t end up being a parody of myself.”