Dudley Noble, who started at the

Rover Company The Rover Company Limited was a British car manufacturing company originally founded in 1878, beginning car manufacturing in 1904. It primarily operated from its base in Solihull, Warwickshire. Rover also manufactured the Land Rover series from ...

in 1911 as a

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike; uni (if one-wheeled); trike (if three-wheeled); quad (if four-wheeled)) is a lightweight private 1-to-2 passenger personal motor vehicle Steering, steered by a Motorcycle handlebar, handlebar from a saddle-style ...

tester and competition rider, became one of the British automobile industry's pioneering

publicist A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a company, a brand, or public figure – especially a celebrity – or for work or a project such as a book, film, or album. Publicists are public relations specialists wh ...

s. He arranged one of the first ever promotional films to be shot, in 1912, of the Rover motorcycle production and testing, ending with a sequence of him accidentally falling off his motorbike in the middle of Kenilworth ford! Many of his Rover publicity exercises, such as racing the Blue Train, passed into motoring legend. In January 1930, the

Rover Rover may refer to: People Name * Constance Rover (1910–2005), English historian * Jolanda de Rover (born 1963), Dutch swimmer * Rover Thomas (c. 1920–1998), Indigenous Australian artist Stage name * Rover (musician), French singer-songw ...

name hit the world press when a Rover tried to take on ''

Le Train Bleu The ''Calais-Mediterranée Express'' was a French luxury night express train which operated from 1886 to 2003. It gained international fame as the preferred train of wealthy and famous passengers between Calais and the French Riviera during the ...

'' on its 750-mile run between

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a French port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Calais is the largest city in Pas-de-Calais. The population of the city proper is 67,544; that of the urban area is 144,6 ...

and

Cannes Cannes (, ; , ; ) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions Internatio ...

. The idea of racing the Blue Train was very popular with motor enthusiasts, and each new attempt was received with varying expectations of success. Many had already failed on this mammoth challenge. The act to promote the new

Rover Light Six The Rover Light Six was a narrower lightweight short wheelbase variant of their Two-litre sports saloon produced from 1929 to 1930 by the Rover Company of Coventry. The following season it was sold with a 2½-litre 20 hp engine under the nam ...

in a headline-grabbing campaign was the brainchild of former

tester and pioneer

Dudley Noble, in which a Light Six was to race the Blue Train across

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

from

to St Raphael on the

Côte d'Azur The French Riviera, known in French as the (; , ; ), is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is considered to be the coastal area of the Alpes-Maritimes department, extending fr ...

. It was a moderately shameless stunt of him, being safe in the knowledge that the average speed of the famous express was no more than about 40 mph once all its stops and detours were taken into account. To beat the train, Noble had to drive more or less non-stop from Calais to the French Riviera. The Rover Light Six averaged 38 mph on its 750 miles journey to beat the train's expected time of just over 20 hours, which gave the Rover team a 20-minute lead over the train. It had been beaten for the first time and the Rover team became celebrities through the ''

Daily Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first ...

''. In March 1930, Bentley Boy

Woolf Barnato Joel Woolf BarnatoPronounced Barnatoo – from Barnett too (27 September 1895 – 27 July 1948) was a British financier and racing driver, one of the " Bentley Boys" of the 1920s. He achieved three consecutive wins out of three entries in the ...

raised the stakes on

and its Rover Light Six having raced and beat ''

'' for the first time, to better that record with his 6½ Litre

Bentley Speed Six The Bentley 6½ Litre and the high-performance Bentley Speed Six were rolling chassis produced by Bentley from 1926 to 1930. The Speed Six, introduced in 1928, became the most successful racing Bentley. Two Bentley Speed Sixes became known as th ...

on a bet of 100 Pound Sterling. He drove against the train from

, then by ferry to

Dover Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies southeast of Canterbury and east of Maidstone. ...

and finally

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, travelling on public highways, and won; the H. J. Mulliner-bodied formal saloon he drove during the race as well as a streamlined fastback "Sportsman Coupe" by Gurney Nutting he took delivery of on 21 May 1930 became known as the ''

Blue Train Bentley The Blue Train Races were a series of record-breaking attempts between automobiles and trains in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It saw a number of motorists and their own or sponsored automobiles race against the '' Le Train Bleu'', a train that r ...

s''; the latter is regularly mistaken for or erroneously referred to as being the car that raced the Blue Train, while in fact Barnato named it in memory of his race.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Noble, Dudley British public relations people Rover Company Year of birth missing Year of death missing