Racing the Blue Train

RETURN TO THE RIVIERA by Greg Wrapson

To those of a nostalgic and adventurous turn of mind, it is surely impossible not to be stirred by the exploits of E J P Eugster and his crew, who, driving an SA 16.95 Silver Eagle sports tourer made an epic dash across France from St Raphael on the Riviera to Calais on the night of 24/25 February 1930 in a successful attempt to arrive at the Channel port before the glamorous Blue Train. Having left St Raphael at 6.30pm, they ran the Silver Eagle through the night, cruising at 60-70 mph, over 700 miles in 17¾ hours, averaging 41.4 mph including stops, to arrive in Calais three hours before the scheduled arrival of the train.

The precise identity of the car involved had proved somewhat elusive but the eventual discovery of this photograph confirmed that it was indeed, as long suspected, Car no 12714, chassis no 7857, fitted with a 4-seater sports body by Cross & Ellis in black fabric with red piping, red upholstery and red wheels. It was despatched to Henlys, London, on 19 December 1929, registered GC 326, and used by Henlys as a demonstrator until it was sold to Lord Acton on 3 June 1930. Apart from the French adventure, the car was also used for road tests which appeared in Motor Sport and The Automotor Journal.

The photograph shows the car on the French Riviera prior to the start of the run. The handwritten caption on the reverse of the photo gives the name of the chap on the right as Doug Watson. Leaning languidly on the spare wheel is E J P Eugster, who despite being provided with three perfectly adequate forenames (Edward Joseph Paul), was apparently known as ‘Bill’. He was employed by Henlys in the role of ‘Progress Manager’, which would explain the use of Henlys’ demonstrator for this winter excursion to the sun, although despite the publicity advantages for the Company, and however generous the expense account, one imagines that not all Henlys’ employees were in a position to be quite so self-indulgent. Eugster was born in London in 1902, his unusual surname inherited from his Swiss antecedents. The family were in comfortable circumstances, being the proprietors of The British Syphon Co, manufacturers since 1882 of those wonderful wire-mesh covered double globe glass gazogenes for dispensing soda water, and later of the more familiar heavy glass syphons without which no properly-equipped drinks cabinet used to be complete.

Writing after the event, Bill Eugster told something of the rationale for the trip: ‘The new 3-carburettor sports Alvis is a nice, fast  motor car; let us therefore, go to the South of France, play a little golf, and then on the journey home, set ourselves a race against the Blue Train.’ Contemporary advertising told a little more of the story: Decarbonised after 2000 miles use as a demonstrator, ‘it was taken overseas; driven flat out across France to the sunny South. Here it became a taxi, except that it travelled much faster than even French taxis do. It took us to golf, up the winding road that climbs several thousand feet to La Turbie: along the twisting, treacherous coast road to Nice and to Cannes; and at night, it was driven to and from the Casino, as though our early arrival were a matter of life and death.’

The exploit attracted useful, if transient, publicity for Alvis and Henlys, although the Press quickly discouraged any further such tests of speed on public roads. One hopes it was not cause and effect that led Bill Eugster to leave Henlys soon afterwards to join his family business, where he served as Managing Director until his death at the early age of 60 in 1962. It is more likely perhaps, that the trip was an agreeable swansong to his time at Henlys.

The photograph also reveals that Bill Eugster and his chums were in interesting company. One of the joys of motoring research is that it can lead down totally unexpected byways of history, even if they are not directly Alvis-related. The Paris-registered Rolls-Royce seen in the background of the photograph also has a tale to tell. Tom Clarke kindly identified it as the 1928 Phantom 1, chassis 40AL, fitted with brougham-de-ville coachwork by the Parisian carrossier Belvalette, owned by J H Hyde.

James Hazen Hyde’s story is a remarkable one. Born in the USA in 1876, he was the son of the founder of The Equitable Life Assurance Society. His father died in 1899, leaving him at the age of 23, and having only recently graduated from Harvard, as the controlling shareholder of one of the largest financial services businesses in the US. At the time, it was said that half of all American savings were held in life assurance or annuities. Regulation was in its infancy, and it was perhaps inevitable that the original founders of these burgeoning enterprises tended to regard the companies as their own personal fiefdoms. The obvious dangers of the potential blurring of personal and corporate interests and expenses began to cause some concern, and in addition, the envious eyes of competitors began to be cast on The Equitable’s pool of capital.  

James Hyde was perhaps an easy target for critics and those among his fellow directors who thought him too young and inexperienced to run so major a concern. It has to be said that he was as far removed from the image of a staid and reliable financier as it is possible to imagine. Apart from his youth, he was a confirmed Francophile who spoke faultless French, dressed impeccably in the then fashionable Parisian style, was a shining light on the New York social scene, and appeared regularly in the gossip columns. His major sporting interest was four-in-hand coach driving, and in 1901, he and Alfred Vanderbilt raced from New York to Philadelphia and back, setting a record by covering 224 miles in less than 20 hours.

Against this background, Hyde was highly vulnerable to the coup de grace which befell him early in 1905. In January of that year, he organised a spectacular costume ball for 600 guests in New York. The hotel was decorated to evoke the gardens of Versailles, entertainment was provided by the orchestra and corps de ballet of the Metropolitan Opera, and a one-act play was commissioned for the occasion. Such spectacular and flamboyant extravagance gave Hyde’s opponents ammunition to claim that his actions were harmful to the reputation of the Company, and there were also wholly unfounded but damaging rumours that the cost of the ball, variously reported as $100,000 or $200,000, had come from Company funds.  

As a result of criticism from the New York State Legislature and a campaign orchestrated by other Equitable directors, Hyde resigned his position and sold his shares. It was perhaps with some relief and sense of fulfilment that he left New York in December 1905 and went to live in Paris in an elegant mansion in the 7ème arrondissement near Versailles. He became a noted philanthropist and patron of the arts, and was tireless in working to foster links between France and the US, work for which he was appointed to the Legion d’Honneur. When Paris was occupied by the Nazis in 1941, Hyde returned to New York where he lived in a suite at the Savoy Plaza Hotel in Manhattan until his death in 1959.

This article was first published in Alvis Register Bulletin 261 (Winter 2014)

Post script: It seems that nobody has ever been able to agree exactly how long the competitive distance was, which of course means that we end up with differing claims about the average speed. In contemporary ads Henlys claimed 740 miles, Castrol 720 (which was probably nearer the mark). What seems to have been overlooked is that although the party was staying at the Hotel Beau Site in Cannes, they actually started the run home from the station at St Raphael which is some 25 miles or so to the west. The report confirms that they had waited there for the train to set off. Not much doubt in my mind that the figure of 44mph is an exaggeration, but after all these years I guess it’s a bit late to worry about it (and the participants themselves seem to have refrained from making any claims on this point).