Blue Train Races

The prime season for "le train bleu" was between November and April, when wealthy travellers escaped the British winter to spend their holiday on the French Riviera.

It then made stops at all the major resort towns of the French Riviera, or Côte d'Azur: St. Raphael, Juan-les-Pins, Antibes, Cannes, Nice, Monaco, and its final destination, Menton, near the Italian border.

Former motorcycle tester and pioneer publicist Dudley Noble had the idea to promote the new Rover Light Six by racing it against the Blue Train across France from St. Raphael on the Côte d'Azur to Calais.

[3] In March 1930, at a dinner at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes, talk around the table had swung round to the topic of motor cars; in particular to the advertisement by Rover claiming that its Light Six had gone faster than the famous "Le train bleu" express.

Woolf Barnato, chairman of Bentley and winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1928 and 1929,[note 1] contended that just to go faster than the Blue Train was of no special merit.

He raised the stakes by arguing that at the wheel of his Bentley Speed Six, he could be at his club in London before the train reached Calais and bet £100 on that challenge.

[2] The next day,[2] 13 March 1930, as the Blue Train steamed out of Cannes station at 17:45,[4] Barnato and his relief driver, amateur golfer Dale Bourn, finished their drinks and drove the Bentley away from the bar at the Carlton.

[5] Research efforts by Bruce and Jolene McCaw of Medina, Washington, who bought the Gurney Nutting-built "Blue Train Special", have further exposed and widely publicised the mistake.

In a programme aired 9 May 2004, Clarkson drove an Aston Martin DB9 from the Dunsfold studio in Surrey to Monte Carlo against Hammond and May who took the TGV and Eurostar trains.