*BIOGRAPHY AND CV* *SPOTLIGHT ON ROBERT HUGHES* *EARLY DAYS- A PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORD*
PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY AND CV
At the age of 14, Robert Hughes set up a mail order business dealing in obsolete motoring literature and publicity material.
While still boarding at St George’s College, and upon passing his driving test, Robert invested the profits to buy and sell cars between studies.By the time he left school, he had bought and sold 21 cars including one to a teacher.
After training in estate agency in 1983, Robert sold the mail order operation and resigned from his job to launch a fully-fledged car business underwriting part-exchanges independently from five British Leyland dealerships. He traded on volume with lean margins selling
up to 12 cars a week, and soon established in-roads to BL’s coveted Jaguar outlets and Rolls Royce.
He also started to restore classic cars, so a niche was carved selling yester-year models alongside younger examples. When a Hughes restored Jaguar 3.8 achieved a JDC concours placing in 1985, it set a benchmark
Months later, Robert embarked on a foreign adventure, hiring a two-deck transporter jointly with another dealer to exhibit cars at Techno-Classica, Essen, Germany, and by the late 1980’s had also taken stands at London Olympia,
Wembley and most notably Birmingham NEC where he exhibited annually for 30 years.
Since 1987, many of Robert’s cars have been used for glossy editorials in Classic Cars and Classic and Sportscar magazine and numerous other related periodicals. As a side line in the 1980’s and 90’s, Robert hired vehicles out for pop videos,film and television productions,
occasionally supplementing his income playing minoron-screen roles as an extra.
Following a brief partnership at a car site in Kingston during 1987 the business diversified, exporting later prestige cars sourced from main dealers to the Far East to satisfy a surge in demand ahead of the 1992 emission regulation changes.
Robert secured a loyal client base in Hong Kong selling by fax and phone and supplied a specialist dealership in Tokyo.
Closer to home Robert won the Top Gear TNT Express ‘Best Dealer’ award for his stand at the NEC in 1993, which was awarded by Quentin Wilson.
The car business attracted national media attention in 1994 when a Telegraph journalist featured the operation as an ideal supplier of prestige models qualifying for competitive company car tax. The Times picked up on the story and the two articles brought in over 200 enquiries. The Standard devoted a piece to the business in 2001. Robert has been consulted and quoted numerous times by the Telegraph’s motoring problem fixer “Honest John” and featured in the Millers Guide. He has been interviewed on BBC Southern Counties Radio, Channel 5’s The Car Show and evaluated classic cars on Channel 4’s ‘Posh Pawn’ in 2014-15.
Robert was commissioned by publishers Cassell to write a book on the history of Jaguar in 1995 with 4,500 copies produced in hardback. Robert wrote much of it in Dublin where he rented an apartment for 3 months whilst also investigating the local car sales market.
After obtaining an Irish TAN licence, Robert held a car sales exhibition at The Keadeen Hotel near the Curragh racecourse launching a satellite car sales branch in County Kildare, but the management complained that “too many people” turned up! Robert organised car shows in Ireland regularly from 1998 until 2011 at venues such as Citywest Hotel and Conference Centre, Red Cow Exhibition Centre and the grounds of Barberstown Castle. They became popular motoring fixtures during the Celtic Tiger years and were covered by Irish radio, local and national press including The Irish Times and Irish Independent. Robert exhibited regularly at other well-known events such as The Terenure Show and Dermot Flynn’s Classic Motor sales.
Robert’s business has incorporated residential property investment and management since the mid- 90’s, including farmland from 2001 and serviced apartments in Tallinn, Estonia from 2003 where he lived part-time until the business became established by 2006. He was a member of the British Estonian Chamber of Commerce. Since 2017 Robert has been quoted on property rental matters several times in the Telegraph property supplement and is currently a director of two UK based property management companies.
An active member of Junior Chamber of Commerce for the City of London for some years, Robert served as their Business Director in 2002 and Deputy President in 2003, though reluctantly turned down the opportunity to be President in 2004 owing to a family crisis. In 2007 he joined a panel of entrepreneurs to speak at the JCI National Conference in Sheffield.
Robert’s passion for speech and presentation dates-back to 1980 when, as school champion he represented St George’s College in the Catenian Association’s Public Speaking Contest, winning first prize.He has completed courses at both London’s City Lit, and with the N.S.A. in Hawaii, and received one-to-one training with Tom Drews in California. Today Robert keeps those skills active as a part-time presenter on Radio Jackie 107.8 FM, London’s oldest independent radio station.
Robert wrote the motoring page for Sussex Style magazine in 2016-17 and penned several film celebrity biographies used by The Renown Picture Club and Talking Pictures TV during lockdowns in 2020-21. He is an avid, published letter writer on current affairs in National newspapers.
Today, the motor business operates more personalised services for a growing number of collectors, investors and loyal clients, apart from maintaining the 40-plus year trading base in classic and prestige vehicles via specialist publications and online portals such as Car & Classic. In recent years, Robert has sourced and supplied over 50 classic cars to a private museum.
Robert has been a member of the Jaguar Drivers’ Club since 1983, was one of the first 70 members of the Jaguar Enthusiasts’ Club and was an invited member of The Jaguar Specialists’ Association. He is an associate member of The Institute of Advanced Motorists and a member of The Royal Automobile Club.
In 2018 Robert received The Freedom of The City of London.
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Early Days
In 1984 an old school friend, Mark Harrison was training as a professional photographer and one of his assignments was to follow a subject in a working environment . I agreed to be shadowed by Mark’s camera for a couple of days, and these pictures now provide a fascinating insight showing how the motor trade operated all those years back.
Please click on the photographs below for further information and additional pictures.
The photographs are displayed with Mark’s kind permission www.markharrisonphotography.com