Matthew Humphries

He made his name at Morgan while still a student, and is now the design force behind his own watch firm 

- Richard Heseltine

QUICK TO LAUGH and winningly modest, our host is great company but the bonhomie slips momentarily. Matthew Humphries is about to reach the Big Four-Zero and our mention makes him groan: his age has long been a talking point. This is a man who helmed a car design department while barely out of his teens, let's not forget. 'Yeah, but I was the design department,' he counters. 'I still have trouble believing that was almost 20 years ago.'

As do we. So just how did the likeable Midlander make the leap from student to master so quickly? 'When I was four, dad took me with him to a Citroën show in his DS21 Pallas,' he muses. "That was the defining moment. I became addicted to cars. Dad is an architect and obviously he was an influence, but I suppose what really had a big impact was learning that I am dyslexic. If you can't do something well, you quickly learn to play to your strengths. When I was young, dad used to give me these massive sheets of draughting paper and I would spend hours sketching cars.

Humphries was studying design at Coventry University when destiny called. As part of the course I had to arrange a work placement. Like my peers, I fired off my folio to Land Rover, BMW, Citroën and so on, but also to Morgan. Of course, Morgan didn't have a design department, but I tried to think laterally. My folio included lots of renderings for British brands, because I have always appreciated them, and [third-generation principal] Charles Morgan was very receptive. He liked what I had done, which led to me doing work experience.