Hugh Conway

As the chairman of the Bugatti Trust retires after 20 years' service, he shows us around its HQ - and reflects on his late father HG Conway, the noted Bugatti authority who co-founded it

-  James Page

Few families have done more to record, research and promote the history of a marque than the Conways have with Bugatti. They have become inextricably linked with the Molsheim company in the 60 years since Hugh G Conway published his seminal book Bugatti - Le Pur-Sang des Automobiles. It's little wonder that his son, also called Hugh, has followed in his footsteps, most recently thanks to his work as chairman of the Bugatti Trust. While most children have at least a period of rebellion against their parents, Hugh Conway insists that he was never tempted to become a devotee of Alfa Romeo or Maserati simply to goad his father.

'HG' Conway was an engineer who had a long career in the aerospace industry that took him from Short Brothers to Bristol Siddeley where he was involved in the production of the Olympus engines that powered Concorde and finally Rolls-Royce. He was even part of the Decimal Currency Board in the early 1970s and played a role in the design of the new 50p coin. According to his obituary in The Daily Telegraph, the Rolls-Royce designers he'd enlisted to help said that they had to give the job an order number, so 'HG' told them to give it a Concorde one and then the French will have to pay half.

His love for all things automotive was apparent from an early age. 'Even as a young boy he was into cars and he had a great collection of them over the years,' says Conway of his father. 'He got a degree at Cambridge - a Third [because] he spent too much time playing with cars and was secretary of the Cambridge University Automobile Club.

But it wasn't just 'HG' who had an influence on the young Conway. His mother was Eva Gordon-Simpson, who had raced at Brooklands and competed on the 1932 Monte Carlo Rally. In 1935, she took part in the Le Mans 24 Hours in an MG Midget PA shared with Joan Richmond - one of three such cars that had been entered by the factory and Captain George Eyston for all-female crews.