A 1911 Ford Model T

This year’s CBA Africa Concours d’Elegance took place at the Ngong Racecourse Nairobi over the weekend. It is the 48th edition of the vintage motorcar show by the Alfa Romeo Owners Club. Over 10,000 car buffs, mostly Kenyans who buy more tyres than shoes, made their way there to admire the 70 classic vintage cars and 40 motorcycles gunning for the top prize.

Since the first Concours d’Elegance at the Safari Park Hotel in 1971, this event held at the last Sunday of every September has attracted entries from Argentina, Australia, England, Germany, Malawi, Mauritius, Mexico, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zanzibar and Zimbabwe.

Over the years, an amazing variety of cars have captured the top prize: a 1934 Fiat, a 1934 Railton, a 1951 Daimler DB 18 Barker, a 1972 Jaguar E-Type… But did you know the oldest car in Kenya belongs to the family of Peter Hughes - the first chief judge of the original Concours d’Elegance?

A little story will do.

Peter Hughes was a scion of a ‘car family.’ His father John J Hughes was the Ford distributor in Kenya, where Hughes Motors controlled 52 per cent market share at the height of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

His mother, Dorothy Hughes, was Kenya’s first female architect. She designed, among others, the Holy Family Basilica, Nairobi Hospital, ‘Mad House’ - which has since been demolished along K-Street Nairobi - and St Mary’s School, where Peter was buried alongside his parents.

Peter Hughes, founder of the world-class Associated Vehicle Assemblers (AVA), died in 2012 at 77. His son, Michael Hughes, also went into motor sport and even judged Concours d’Elegance.

Michael often showcased the family’s 1911 Ford Model T, the oldest remaining one in Kenya, and a reminder of the Ford franchise that minted their fortune.

A Kenyan citizen, Michael, a mechanical engineer, is the MD of Drumbeat Ltd and was for four years to 2000 the general manager of the Safari Rally. In fact, he won the Group N class of the 1992 Safari Rally edition. His father Peter had won it 28 years earlier in 1964!

The 1911 Model T Ford, now part of the heritage collection at the Concours d’Elegance, was bought by his grandfather JJ Hughes in the 1900s from South Africa’s General Jan Smuts. It was used during World War I when the Germans fought the British in Voi and Taita when Tanzania was then known as German East Africa.

The Hughes family also owns a 1923 Ford Model T. The only other older collections than what the Hughes own include a 1916 steam engine owned by Roger Tanner, who has previously showcased his 1949 Bentley Mark VI Limo the Concours d’Elegance.

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