It started in India
In 2022 I travelled solo through northern India, riding 3,500 km by motorcycle. On day one, after more than six hours in relentless rain, my iPhone died. I ended up buying a Xiaomi from a shop outside Nalagarh that was half grocery store, half phone shop.
Without normal access to my SIM, Instagram became my main way to communicate. I started sharing the trip through Close Friends Stories: the broken phone, the food, the people, the roads and the bike. Without planning it, I was testing the storytelling format that would later become Volata.
The seed
My loyal audience of around 40 people were friends and family, but I was hooked on telling the story while I was living it. On the way back to Delhi a question appeared: what if this could be my life?
Back in Barcelona, the idea stayed. If I wanted to mix travel and cars, I had to start somewhere. I still had a full-time job, so I began with car content. The only thing missing was a name.
Volata di Peluca
I did not want the project to carry my own name. My father is Italian and cars have always felt connected to Italy for me, so I wanted something with that sound.
The day before a Christmas dinner, my friend Ernest sent a sticker saying “volatta di peluka”, basically a ridiculous way of saying the next day would be a party. It made me laugh. I made it a little more Italian: Volata di Peluca.
Butterfly effect
That is how a name that meant nothing specific came to mean the whole project. A broken phone in India led to Stories for 40 people; those Stories planted an idea; and a sticker between friends ended up naming it.
Sometimes a road starts long before you realise you are on it.