He dropped out of college and founded a car dealership in Paris at the age of twenty-one. He became friends with Ettore Bugatti, an Italian car designer and manufacturer.
In 1913, he became the first owner of a Bugatti Type 18, also known as the Garros. By its second owner, the British racing driver Ivy Cummings, the car was named Black Bess. The car survives to this day in the Louwman Museum in the Netherlands.
