PastI mperfect: Rene Dreyfus - race driver and restaurateur
The winner of the 1938 Cork Grand Prix was, to say the least, unusual. René Dreyfus was born in 1905 to Jewish parents in Nice. One of his earliest memories was of their beloved Clément-Bayard being requisitioned by the French forces in the first World War.
By 1923, aged 18, Réne and his brother Maurice started a paper business and in 1924, Réne acquired a 6hp Mathis for business travel. The following year, he entered the Circuit de Gattiéres in the Mathis and won the 750cc class. Following various adventures on motorcycles Réne bought a Bugatti Brescia and began to take his motor racing more seriously.
In 1927 Réne graduated to a Bugatti 37A and soon established his reputation as the most successful driver on the Riviera. He had become firm friends with Louis Chiron - then the most successful of French drivers - and attempted to persuade Réne that he had the talent to turn professional. Réne was not so sure, but at Louis's urging he entered the Targa Florio in Sicily, where he finished eighth.
Compulsory military service intervened, and it was 1929 before Réne returned to the race tracks of the Riviera, the year of the first Monaco Grand Prix, and Réne took the Bugatti to fifth place. In 1931 he was signed as a works driver by Maserati for two disastrous seasons before a return to Bugatti and success. By the time he came to the Cork Grand Prix in 1938, Réne was one of a handful of top French drivers. His victory in Cork driving a Delahaye was against the odds and all the sweeter for being so.
The following year saw Réne return to military service. Incredibly, in 1940, as French motor racing champion, Réne was given leave of absence to travel to America to drive in the Indianapolis 500. He found himself stranded there when Germany invaded France and Paris fell, and in the absence of any race cars, borrowed the money to start a restaurant, the famous Le Chanteclair, which over its 25-year history was to become one of New York's greatest restaurants.
When the US entered the war, Réne joined the American army, serving with distinction in Italy with the 5th Army. He returned to racing post-war, competing in the 1952 24-Hours of Le Mans. His final race was the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1955. In 1980 he was invited back to the Monaco Grand Prix to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his victory there. At the banquet following the race, he was brought to the stage to sit once again in the Bugatti in which he had won, half a century earlier. Réne Dreyfus, racing driver and restaurateur died in August 1993.