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After making his mark in Swedish and Finnish ice racing, in 1937 Bjornstadt was one of the members of the Voiturette "circus" which was active in the 1930s. Works teams were rare (ERA and Maserati, then later Alfa Romeo) but there were numerous private entrants who participated in races all over Europe. Italy and France and their North African colonies were the main centres for Voiturette racing, but there were other events in Germany, Britain, Switzerland, Monaco (once) and even Czechoslovakia.
Eugen had bought the original ERA, R1A, and his first race with it was in Turin. His technique was described by the Autocar as "quite unorthodox", owing much to ice-racing. I suspect he was pretty spectacular to watch, as ice racing involves a lot of tail sliding! At Turin he was running in 5th by lap 2, only to spin out and drop down the field. He recovered and gradually worked his way up the order again, catching and passing the leader René Dreyfus near the end of the race, to score a very surprising but deserved win.
A week later, at Posillipo, he proved this was no fluke, coming third behind the vastly experienced Trossi and Bira in much newer cars (R1A was by now four years old!)
He then moved on to the Avusrennen in Berlin: his equipment was unsuited to the high-speed blast down the Autobahn and he destroyed one of his tyres while running second to Charlie Martin, the eventual winner. Bjornstad was seventh, a lap down.
He then went to America, where he raced an Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 in the Vanderbilt Cup, retiring at the 60-lap mark.
As far as I can tell, he never raced again ...
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