Category Archives: Miscellaneous News

Morgan Motor Company celebrated over a century of innovation and craftsmanship at the inaugural Run For The Hills event last weekend (26th & 27th August) with 1000’s of Morgans from a 108-year history returning home to Malvern.

Held at the Malvern Three Counties Showground in association with the Morgan Sports Car Club, Morgan owners and aficionados from around the world gathered for two days of family fun, just a few miles from the Pickersleigh Road home of the iconic coachbuilder.

The RFTH weekend saw over 5,000 owners and enthusiasts enjoy activities for the whole family including an open house at the Morgan Motor Company factory, hot air balloon rides, Morgan AutoSOLO track experience, live aerobatic displays, racing simulators and male grooming and beauty treatments and a freestyle motocross stunt display.

Visitors were also treated to a stunning lineup of Morgan dealership displays as well as a concours and historic area celebrating Chris Lawrence and his significant impact on the Morgan marque. All three Morgan SLRs were displayed alongside TOK258, the Morgan that Chris Lawrence drove to victory at Le Mans in 1962.

Visitors on Saturday morning witnessed a special 3 Wheeler cavalcade from the factory to the showground, showcasing Morgan’s iconic 3 Wheeler models from over a century of the marque’s history. The oldest models were built in 1909 by H.F.S. Morgan while the newest model had rolled off the assembly line that week. The cavalcade included over 50 3 Wheelers and was led by the all-electric EV3, driven by Managing Director, Steve Morris.

A grand Gala Dinner took place on Saturday night, hosted by the world’s greatest living explorer, Sir Ranulph Fiennes. The British hero thrilled guests with stories from over five decades of his expeditions in the world’s most perilous climates. The Gala Dinner menu celebrated produce and companies from across the 3 Counties, and was local sourced where possible. A charity auction hosted by auctioneer Philip Serrell raised £22,000 for the British Heart Foundation. Stand-out lots included a clay model Aero 8 created by Jon Wells, and an EV3 Junior.

The climax of the weekend was the Morgan prom on Sunday evening, with the English Symphony Orchestra playing iconic pieces of music for a packed arena, with the backdrop of a spectacular fireworks display bringing the weekend’s celebrations to a close. A highlight of the event for many, the concert provided a fitting ending to a truly memorable weekend.

Steve Morris, Managing Director of Morgan Motor Company, said:

We have had such a wonderful weekend here at Run For The Hills. We are continually blown away by the unrivaled passion that our owners and enthusiasts have for the marque. There were many highlights for me, however seeing the 3 Wheelers leave the factory on Saturday morning and then watching the English Symphony Orchestra concert and fireworks closing the event were perfect book ends of the show.

We welcomed well over 1,500 Morgans home to Malvern throughout the weekend from early pre-war cars to latest production cars, returning home from all over the world. The strong attendance of the event and the superb atmosphere throughout the weekend is a signal of great strength for the Morgan community. On behalf of the Morgan family, directors and staff, I would like to thank all those involved in helping to make this event a success. We are already looking forward to our next event.

When the sun shines, a young man’s fancy turns to sports cars.  So this (old) man heads to Malvern Link, home of Morgan, and to the driver’s seat of a 4/4, the world’s oldest new car, now in its 81st year of production.

Now of course Porsches and Ferraris go faster, Mazda MX-5s are sweeter to drive and Caterhams steer and stop better. But if your priorities are wind-in-the-hair fun, turn-up-the-volume driving engagement and a passport back to a gentler motoring era, then nothing can beat a Morgan.

They are mostly made as they always were: hand-built using mallets and files and saws and human sweat, and crafted from traditional materials. Indeed the frames of the oldest ‘classic’ models, like the 4/4, are still made from ash. They are far more hand-wrought than any Bentley or Rolls-Royce, whose bodies are invariably made by machine and whose hand-craftsmanship is typically confined to cabin carpentry and trim leathersmithery, plus the odd specially commissioned bespoke flourish.

Little has changed since the 4/4 was new. Morgan is still an independent family-owned company. The manufacturing technique is so unusual and old-fashioned that factory tours (£20) are a popular attraction. Last year, 30,000 people took the tour and, in typical English style, it includes afternoon tea. It gets five stars on Trip Advisor.

Our Morgan has a modern 110bhp 1.6-litre Ford engine and a previous-gen Mazda MX-5 five-speed gearbox but in every other way it’s about as mechanically similar to a new saloon as a Spitfire is to a 787.

Take the windows. There are none. Instead, we find side screens that we unclip and leave behind. It is a beautiful summer’s day, so no need for weather protection. Also, no need to put up the fabric roof, coiled behind our heads. There are only two seats and entry is by a tiny shallow door, opened by a latch. The door has leather pull-straps. It appears to weigh nothing.

The steering wheel is wood rimmed and alloy spoked – forget about an airbag – and it’s large and upright, closer to your chest than a modern car’s. The dash is a plank of varnished walnut. The only digital display is total mileage. This is not a digital-age car.

Out front there is a little upright chrome-ringed windscreen, and a long bonnet, elegantly sculpted, hand formed and tethered by leather straps. Little louvres help the engine breathe. We see twin headlamps standing proud, like frog’s eyes, and elegant sweeping round fenders.

The (optional) side-exiting exhaust is just under your right shoulder. It barks into action when you turn the key – you can smell the fumes on start-up – and the engine soon settles into an uneven and throaty idle.

Its smallness and all-aluminium body makes for a light car, just under 800kg. There is no power steering, so turning the big wood-rimmed wheel when stationary or at low speed requires shoulder and arm heft. Clutch and brake pedal are also heavy.

It feels and sounds fast but isn’t. This is a car that’s all about sensation, not measurement. Just as cycling at 20mph feels faster than driving at 60mph, so the Morgan feels fast beyond the speedo’s numbers. The ride is firm and easily unsettled and the handling lacks finesse. But what do you expect from an 80-year-old design, whose rear suspension owes more to a wheelbarrow than double wishbones? Like all old cars, it needs manhandling and heft; anticipation and concentration; and, yes, just a little love and understanding.

It’s designed for the winding narrow roads of England of 70 or 80 years ago, which still gently crisscross much of the country’s rolling green land. They are wonderful driving roads. Speed is irrelevant. The slower, the better. You’re always interacting with your environment: with the weather, with nature and its many scents and sounds, and with the car itself. It is a different type of motoring, totally alien to the hermetically sealed air-conditioned cabins in which we today rush hither and thither, isolated from everything around us, in a world bulldozed for speed.

Every once in a while, it’s good to be transported back to sports cars of yore and to the driving world of yesteryear.  Only an old classic, or a new Morgan, can do this. It helps us to understand how much cars have improved and, just as important, how much raw driving enjoyment has been diluted.

Pretty much an Edwardian Miata.

The idea of giving cars a rapid model cycle and built-in obsolescence was born in the U.S., but it has long since spread to the rest of the world. Few mainstream models are still in production by the time the earliest versions of a generation reach their eighth birthdays, and there likely will have been one or more facelifts or refreshes squeezed into that brief span. The first rule of automotive marketing remains, as always, that this year’s car is the best one.

HIGHS

Suddenly it’s 1936, only with a modern engine.

LOWS

No modern conveniences, nor even any vintage conveniences.

That doesn’t play in Malvern, the small town at the edge of the frequently mispronounced English county of Worcestershire (“Wooster-shire”, the locals say) and home to Morgan Motors for more than a century. Morgan doesn’t change things unless it has to. And, thanks to steady demand for its hand-built sports cars, it rarely needs to. So this 2018 Morgan 4/4—a gleaming press demonstrator with just 1000 miles on the clock when we picked it up—is largely identical to the 2008 version. Or, indeed, the 1998, 1988, or 1978 iterations.

Morgan claims that the 4/4 has been in production for longer than any other car in the world, having been first launched in 1936. Its name referenced the fact that it had both a four-cylinder engine and the then novel (to Morgan) layout of a wheel in each corner, earlier Moggies being exclusively three-wheelers. (We tested a modern Morgan 3 Wheeler a few years back.)

Production of the 4/4 stopped during World War II, and there was another hiatus in the early 1950s. But even if it chose to trace the origins of the current car to the launch of the Series II in 1955—which integrated headlights with the fenders for the first time—it still scores 62 years of continuous construction, making it older than many auto companies. Not to mention many Morgan drivers.

Many details have changed, but the similarities are striking; you could park a modern 4/4 next to its mid-’50s ancestor and struggle to tell them apart. The fundamental construction is identical: a steel chassis with aluminum bodywork fitted over a timber frame (the popular belief that Morgans have structural woodwork is a myth). Suspension is still the archaic combination of sliding pillars at the front and a live axle hanging between two elliptical springs at the back. Disc brakes arrived in the 1960s, but there remain precisely zero driver aids—no ABS, no power steering, not even a brake booster.

Engines have changed through the ages; Morgan has always been agnostic when it comes to powerplants. The Series II launched with a 1.1-liter Ford side-valve engine that produced just 36 horsepower in standard form (40 horsepower with the optional twin-carburetor competition package). The modern car uses a Ford Duratec 1.6-liter inline-four with 110 horsepower that’s pretty much identical to the engine in the base Fiesta as sold in the United Kingdom. This sends torque through a five-speed Mazda manual gearbox, the same transmission that’s fitted to the 3 Wheeler. The 4/4’s lightweight construction and a curb weight of roughly 1900 pounds mean that, in terms of power-to-weight, it’s pretty much an Edwardian Miata.

Elemental Accommodation

The secret of Morgan appreciation is to reset your expectations. By modern standards it is deeply flawed in almost every dynamic regard. But those imperfections add up to something completely different from anything else on the road and—once you get accustomed to some of its most egregious foibles—something that is utterly compelling.

By the standards of vintage cars, the cockpit actually is pretty accommodating. The steering column doesn’t adjust for reach or rake, the footwell is narrow and has some painfully sharp edges, and the floor-hinged pedals are stiff and awkward to use until your ankles adapt to the need to work sideways. The only packaging concession for drivers of different sizes is the ability to slide the seat on its runners, and getting in with the fabric roof in place requires an undignified scramble through the narrow door aperture and around the sizable wood-and-metal steering wheel. Collapsing the roof isn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing, either—our experience involved about three minutes, two swearing fits, and at least one bloody knuckle.

The cabin is narrow enough to have you trading cooties with any passenger. Instrumentation is limited to some appropriately old-fashioned dials (although with modern General Motors–sourced instrument stalks). Trim materials are durable rather than upmarket—Morgan reserves plusher interiors for the more expensive Plus 4 and Roadster models—and there is plenty of evidence that the car has been built by hand, from exposed screw heads to finding occasional bits of swarf from drilled holes strewn about inside. Equipment is limited: Even the plastic side windows come only with the optional upper door halves. (The old word for this is sidescreens.) Our test car had been fitted with a DIN-sized audio player hidden under the dashboard, which proved to be completely inaudible at more than 30 mph. Oh, and although there’s a heater, there are no face-level air vents, the 4/4 predating their invention.

Fat Torque, Skinny Tires

The engine is an unlikely star. In its Ford applications, the Duratec comes across as a utility-grade powerplant that delivers only modest performance. But the lightweight Morgan and sweet-shifting Mazda-sourced gearbox (from the third-generation MX-5 Miata) transform it into something genuinely special, with a free-breathing sports exhaust exiting on the driver’s side for better auditory appreciation. Throttle response is excellent, low-down torque is strong, and the little engine gives its modest all with a zinging enthusiasm. The result is a car that’s not fast per se, but which never feels slow.

The unassisted steering is vein-poppingly heavy if you try to turn the wheel when stationary, but it lightens as soon as the car starts to move. But only for the first half-turn or so of lock, beyond which it firms up again. Constant slight corrections are required to keep the car on course, just like in an old movie, and there’s little feedback beyond vibration that gets through to the rim.

There’s not much for the steering to talk to you about anyway: The period-patterned 165-width Continental tires are positively self-effacing in their lack of grip. The front wheels threaten to lock up under what feels like normal levels of retardation at low speeds. Lateral adhesion feels stronger, but the front tires give up long before the rears. Excessive speed produces understeer rather than anything more exciting; given the slow steering, that’s a good thing. Ride quality is poor, especially on the narrow and bumpy British roads we drove over, with the 4/4 clumping and crashing over even the smallest imperfections, the car’s structure shivering like a wet dog all the while.

Yet, truly, none of this matters. Comparing the Morgan with a modern car is to miss the point entirely. The very modesty of its limits is the key to its appeal. Contemporary cars try to isolate their drivers from distraction, allowing through a carefully controlled amount as officially sanctioned feedback. The 4/4 gives you the lot—noise, vibration, harshness, and (despite the low-cut windscreen’s best efforts) occasional bugs in your hair. It’s like a motorcycle, a vehicle that you have to work with and anticipate both risks and opportunities well ahead of time. A half-hour is a true driving adventure during which 45 mph feels like at least double that, and every successful passing maneuver feels like a race-winning overtake.

A Replica of Itself

While many automakers try to dress themselves in contrived tradition, Morgan wears the real thing. Visitors flock to the Malvern factory to see cars being built using techniques unchanged since its foundation, the company boasting that some workers are fifth- and even sixth-generation employees. And, for all its faults, the 4/4 remains the glorious exemplar of the brand.

Morgan hasn’t sold any of its four-wheeled models in the United States since the Aero 8’s exemption from smart airbags lapsed in 2008, but it is contemplating a return.  As we told you last year, the company is seriously looking at bringing back some of its older models under the exemption in the FAST Act for replicas of cars over 25 years of age.

Let’s hope that happens, but let’s also hope that—if it does—Morgan doesn’t change a thing.

RDM Group has been appointed to manufacture and assemble the EV3 Junior.  

Morgan’s latest model is being made in Coventry it has been revealed.

The Morgan Motor Company might be synonymous with Malvern but a new partnership with a fast-growing Coventry automotive firm will see an electric Morgan vehicle built in the city for the first time.

But before anyone gets too excited, this Morgan is strictly for children – and with a price tag of £7,995 is strictly for those with deep pockets. [That’s only $10,551.24 in today dollars (11/23/17), not to mention the shipping.  Go for it!! Mark]

The Morgan EV3 Junior

RDM Group, which has been hitting the headlines for its work in driverless vehicles, has been appointed to manufacture and assemble the EV3 Junior, a direct replica of Morgan’s popular 3 Wheeler.

A team of eight engineers build each car to order at the firm’s Bilton Road Industrial Estate, with each one taking between four to six weeks to complete.

To date, 14 have rolled off the production line, with one being sent to a customer in California.

Launched six years ago, the 3 Wheeler represented something of a revival for Morgan as it was inspired by a cyclecar launched in 1910 which first got the company going.

Tim Lyons, RDM Group’s chief operations officer, said: “Our Advanced Manufacturing Centre in Coventry is set up to do very niche build work and assembly so we are delighted to be working with Morgan on this exciting project.

“We currently do a lot of bespoke trim work for the actual full-size 3 Wheeler so they knew we were capable of reaching their high standards.

“The EV3 Junior features a bonded carbon fiber monocoque, a natural wooden dashboard and hand-stitched leather trim. It also has functioning headlights, a real suspension system and each order can be custom built to the tastes of the customer, who can specify color and additional extras.”

Mr. Lyons added: “The EV3 Junior is powered by dual lead acid battery and is capable of going 10 miles per hour and over a 10 mile range before needing to be recharged.

“I suppose you could say it’s the ultimate in children’s cars.

“They were on sale in Selfridges last Christmas and they are now available via the Morgan website and their dealership network across the world.”

Morgan Motor relies heavily on humans to manufacture its retro cars, but it leaves nothing to chance

[Just another ‘proof statement’ that the MMC is not stagnant in its methods or processes.  Something that gives me some assurance that they will continue for some time.   Mark]

Morgan Motor Company, which HFS Morgan established in 1909 with the design of the Morgan three-wheeler, today calls its products “coaches” and caters to people “yearning for the classical look of the original Morgans and that nostalgic feel: the wind in the face, pulling the top down when the rain stops,” said Dave Olson of Verisurf Software in Southern California.

The British firm’s vehicles are also still handcrafted, he said. “Rather than using a robot to assemble parts of their frame, there’s this great attention to detail. The fixture they use to assemble and then weld that frame up is handcrafted. They haven’t lost the element of people caring about how it’s going together. A robot doesn’t care how it goes together; it’s just putting things in place, and moving a welder to weld.”

A traditional hand-styled clay model of the Morgan 4/4 [it may be just me but isn’t this a clay model of an Aero 8??  Mark]  is scanned to create a digital design nominal of the surface profile.

But Morgan is by no means behind the times. To help ensure people spending sometimes $100,000 for a car get what they are after, Morgan Motor has for the last four years been using the Verisurf metrology software suite, which costs $10,000–$20,000 depending on the configuration.

Morgan Motor uses Verisurf for three primary applications:

• 3D modeling. “Verisurf uses a 3D laser and reverse-engineering technology to scan the motor car, capture a point cloud, convert that point cloud to a 3D mesh, convert the 3D mesh into NURB surfaces (a mathematical expression for complex profile surfaces), and finally create a watertight solid model that can be used for manufacturing,” Olson said.

• Tool-building. “Verisurf is used to assemble fixtures, toolings and jigs that are used to assemble the automobile. Verisurf works with a variety of metrology devices, including laser trackers and portable CMM arms to position mounting holes, and position tooling, and jigs, and clamps so that the assemblers can assemble the frame and weld it up, and/or assemble the frame and glue and screw it together. And create assembly fixtures for wiring harnesses,” he said.

• Dimensional inspection and quality reporting. “The software is used to connect with pretty much any brand of portable CMM and/or stationary CMM, but in this case they were using primarily portable CMM arms,” Olson said. “They use that to take measurement inspection points and compare them to the CAD model, and display the deviation and create deviation reports, if any, in order to track the quality of their manufacturing process.”

The primary benefits: speed of development, manufacture and inspection.

“It’s all about time to market, or getting the design to market quickly,” he said. “Another major benefit is the improvement in quality. In order to improve quality, you must be able to measure your current conditions and have set goals for improvements, and then measure those.”

And then there is the money saved by reducing scrap. If you get it right the first time, scrap reduction is a tangential benefit.

“If you can implement in-process measurement, you can head off major errors sooner, reduce scrap, and often times save parts that [would otherwise be] scrapped, maybe ones to which you have added a lot of value,” Olson said. “When you look at cost, schedule, and quality, Verisurf helps manufacturers address all of the three major aspects of that product manufacturing.”

Morgan Motor also needs software like Verisurf’s to help it with its production part approval process, aka a “first article inspection report,” required by upper management.

Morgan Motor uses Verisurf’s software along with the Hexagon Romer articulating scanning arm.

Production line players submit those reports as if to say, “Look, everything is in place: We have all the individual parts. We have the production approval process in place. Give us permission to buy material, and I’ll produce x-number of vehicles.”

Verisurf, which founder Ernie Husted named when he designed the software for the verification of surfaces, is also used by Honda and Nissan.

But its largest uptake has been in the industry that’s really stuck on three-wheelers: aerospace. Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

The thing they all have in common: “Mission critical components,” Olson noted. “If there’s a problem in making them, lawyers get involved.”

To avoid legal issues, manufacturers use model-based definition (MBD) workflow—to maintain data integrity and relevance as part of the overall design and manufacturing process.

For Morgan, a key requirement in selecting a measurement solution was that it had to be based on a CAD platform, he said.

When using MBD, the CAD model is the nominal against which all parts are measured and inspected, keeping the all-important digital thread intact—from design to manufacturing to inspection and quality reporting.

Everything that defines the part exists in a single digital archive, including how to manufacture and inspect the part.

In the end, then, Morgan Motor cars rely at once on humans to sculpt them and digitized data to verify those sculptors of sorts did their magic as expected.

Morgan Motor Company celebrated over a century of innovation and craftsmanship at the inaugural Run For The Hills event [August 26 – August 27] with 1000’s of Morgans from a 108-year history returning home to Malvern.

Held at the Malvern Three Counties Showground in association with the Morgan Sports Car Club, Morgan owners and aficionados from around the world gathered for two days of family fun, just a few miles from the Pickersleigh Road home of the iconic coachbuilder.

The RFTH weekend saw over 5,000 owners an enthusiasts enjoy activities for the whole family including an open house at the Morgan Motor Company factory, hot air balloon rides, Morgan AutoSOLO track experience, live aerobatic displays, racing simulators and male grooming and beauty treatments and a freestyle motocross stunt display.

Visitors were also treated to a stunning lineup of Morgan dealership displays as well as a concours and historic area celebrating Chris Lawrence and his significant impact on the Morgan marque. All three Morgan SLRs were displayed alongside TOK258, the Morgan that Chris Lawrence drove to victory at Le Mans in 1962.

Visitors on Saturday morning witnessed a special 3 Wheeler cavalcade from the factory to the showground, showcasing Morgan’s iconic 3 Wheeler models from over a century of the marque’s history. The oldest models were built in 1909 by H.F.S. Morgan while the newest model had rolled off the assembly line that week. The cavalcade included over 50 3 Wheelers and was led by the all-electric EV3, driven by Managing Director, Steve Morris.

A grand Gala Dinner took place on Saturday night, hosted by the world’s greatest living explorer, Sir Ranulph Fiennes. The British hero thrilled guests with stories from over five decades of his expeditions in the world’s most perilous climates. The Gala Dinner menu celebrated produce and companies from across the 3 Counties, and was local sourced where possible. A charity auction hosted by auctioneer Philip Serrell raised £22,000 for the British Heart Foundation. Stand-out lots included a clay model Aero 8 created by Jon Wells, and an EV3 Junior.

The climax of the weekend was the Morgan prom on Sunday evening, with the English Symphony Orchestra playing iconic pieces of music for a packed arena, with the backdrop of a spectacular fireworks display bringing the weekend’s celebrations to a close. A highlight of the event for many, the concert provided a fitting ending to a truly memorable weekend.

Steve Morris, Managing Director of Morgan Motor Company, said:

We have had such a wonderful weekend here at Run For The Hills. We are continually blown away by the unrivaled passion that our owners and enthusiasts have for the marque. There were many highlights for me, however seeing the 3 Wheelers leave the factory on Saturday morning and then watching the English Symphony Orchestra concert and fireworks closing the event were perfect book ends of the show.

We welcomed well over 1,500 Morgans home to Malvern throughout the weekend from early pre-war cars to latest production cars, returning home from all over the world. The strong attendance of the event and the superb atmosphere throughout the weekend is a signal of great strength for the Morgan community. On behalf of the Morgan family, directors and staff, I would like to thank all those involved in helping to make this event a success. We are already looking forward to our next event.

[This is the first I have heard of this.  I don’t know if Charles Morgan is still with Morgan or if he has left for this venture.  (Matt Humphies left Morgan in 2013)  It appears to me that the renderings have the flavor of the Range Rover Evoque  . . . Cheers, Mark]

The company wants to raise about $776,000 to build a running prototype To Make GT Concept A Reality

Fledgling British electric automaker the Alcraft Motor Company hopes that a crowdfunding campaign might help get its first vehicle on the road. Simply called the GT, the design plays on the look of a classic shooting brake with two doors, a long roof, and short tailgate. The firm aims for production to start as soon as 2019.

For now, the GT only exists as renderings and a 33-percent scale foam model. However, the full-size version would use three electric motors with an estimated total output of 600 horsepower (447 kilowatts) and 840 pound-feet (1,139 Newton-meters) of torque. Their arrangement would provide all-wheel drive with torque vectoring. Alcraft figures the vehicle could reach 62 miles per hour in 3.5 seconds and have a 300-mile (483-kilometer) range.

More News About Alcraft:

Inside, the GT sits two occupants, and there’s 17.66 cubic feet (500 liters) of cargo space.

Alcraft is clear that the GT’s design allows for tweaks in the future. Conceivably, the firm could add a range extender to the powertrain. Plus, the interior could sacrifice cargo space to incorporate a 2+2 layout.

Alcraft’s business team includes Charles Morgan, previously at the Morgan Motor Company. Matt Humphries, another former worker at Morgan, is handling design duties. Alcraft is partnering with outside firms to supply the engineering, including Continental for safety systems and Michelin for tires.

The automaker’s crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo aims to raise 600,000 pounds ($776,800 at current exchange rates) to build a running prototype of the GT.

As of this writing, the company has amassed 10 pounds ($13).

Alcraft has been around for a few years, and it previously produced aftermarket body parts for a variety of British vehicles. In 2013, the company unveiled a line of parts for the Land Rover Range Rover (see above) that updated the front bumper, grille, and headlights. The angular pieces were a major departure from the luxury SUV’s usual look.

There have been a lot of distressing items in the news lately about the future of the automobile as we know it and while we cannot predict with much accuracy what will transpire in the years to come, we are sure that it will be a different world from the one that we have known for so long. Fresh on the heels of similar news from France and Norway, the United Kingdom recently announced that it intends to ban the sale of all diesel and gasoline powered automobiles by 2040. This announcement comes not long after Volvo decided to focus on building only pure electrics and hybrids by the end of this decade.

A few months ago I read something from Bob Lutz (formerly an executive at Ford, Chrysler and GM) proclaiming his gratitude for having lived through the golden age of the automobile and personal autonomy (the implication being that such an era is now over) and his is not the only voice that has spoken longingly for a time that seems on the way out.

What does this tremulous future hold for classic automotive enthusiasts?

I think it will be an even better time than ever to drive a real classic sports car. As we surrender our personal transportation to autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles, we will feel the urge (now more than ever) to drive a car under our very own control.

With inspiration from James Earl Jones, I think that for reasons that we cannot fathom we will feel compelled to lift up the bonnet and tinker with the carbs or set the timing because it will fulfill an elemental need that we all share to fix things and make them work when they are broken.

Robbed of anything with a sonorous exhaust note, we will want to hear the noise rumble from the tailpipe as we step on the gas and yearn for the sound of the typewriter-like noises from our pushrod valve trains. Even those that have no real experience with these cars will thirst for the view from behind an iconic banjo wheel. As Terrance Mann said in that Iowa cornfield: “The memories will be so thick that they’ll have to brush them away from their faces … They remind us of all that once was good and could be again.”

As long as British sports cars survive in drivable form there will be drivers who want to drive them and we will be here to supply the parts. The coming decades may be the proverbial time of cholera for true car lovers, but maybe not. More self-driving vehicles may mean less less traffic and reduced danger for those of us in our Little British Cars.

[My professional life was centered on advanced technology and computer software. It was also concentrated in the most risk adverse and safety conscious facet of this world, aerospace.  I frequently saw software fail.  My computer at home frequently ‘freezes’ or in some other ways fails.  This software technology is the basis for autonomous cars.  They manufacturers claim they can make is safe.  I doubt it.  I personally fear driving in an autonomous car, passing a slower vehicle on a high speed bend and just then, having the damn thing fail.  I guess I can reflect on the many benefits of this technology as I sail over the edge of the road, down the precipice and into the ravine.  Just my own personal nightmare. Yours will likely be different.  I am certainly not anti-technology but I don’t envision autonomous cars in my driveway, anytime soon.   Mark]   

Whatever happens, there will always be stretches of open road (they may exist in special driving preserves or we will have to pay for the privilege) where we can exercise our [Morgans], MGs, Triumphs, Jaguars and Healeys to our heart’s content. People still ride horses and have enjoyed them throughout the automotive age, they just no longer serve any meaningful role as day-to-day transportation. Hopefully, the classic car can avoid such an ignominious fate where our cars are reduced to mere diversion (even though they are mostly that now as we haul them out for shows or putter around on the weekends.)

The only way to stave off this off is to continue driving our cars with abandon as the workers at Abingdon, Longbridge and Coventry intended. The more people that see these cars on the road, the more there will be new owners to covet them when it comes time to pass them on.

“People will come, Ray, they will most definitely come.”

[This is an older article however it features a MOGSouth Member, Ellis King, so we just have to have it posted on the web site.  Enjoy.  Mark]

When people talk about sports car “purity,” we usually roll our eyes and simply embrace the notion that if a car is fun, it’s fun. Period.

But the Morgan aficionados who say such things might just have a point.

Take a look at the 2005 Morgan Roadster on these pages. Most non-Morgan fans would be hard pressed to tell you if this car was from 1965 or 2005. Sure, up close, we could recognize the airbag-equipped steering wheel and the thoroughly modern, electronically fuel-injected, overhead-cam engine under the hood, but in its most basic form, the Roadster looks–and acts–just like cars the company made some 50 years ago. It even has the same sliding-pillar front suspension first used before World War II.

After phasing out the Rover V-8-powered Plus 8 in 2004 as it introduced the slick BMW-powered Aero 8, Morgan announced a new model that was simply called the Roadster, clearly inspired by the Plus 8 and Plus 4 that came before it. Morgan earmarked 82 model year 2005 cars for the U.S. market, equipping the cars with airbags, among other details required by federal regulations. Under the hood, in place of the Rover V-8, Morgan installed a Ford Duratec 3.0-liter V-6 as used in the U.K. Ford Mondeo ST220.

Built on a steel ladder frame with a body of aluminum reinforced with wood, the Roadster shows that traditional, small-batch coachbuilding is indeed alive and well in the 21st century. The Roadster may have been built with air conditioning, but it has no proper side windows, just curtains. Its fenders sit well proud of the body, connected front to rear via running boards. Even the round headlamps are affixed between those “wings” and the bonnet. It’s all very old school, but calling it retro would neglect the fact that Morgan never went back to anything. Instead, they have simply maintained tradition and technique.

Ellis King, a retired professor of civil engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, owns the Roadster featured here. As a longtime owner of various English sports cars, Ellis has worked out his own feelings of what he thinks a sports car should be. “I think, first, that you can drive and feel like you’re driving something, that’s part of it,” he says. “It’s something that you feel comfortable in and you feel like you can do almost anything you want within your own capabilities and the car is going to do it for you. It’s something that has classical lines to me that looks like my idea of a sports car. It doesn’t mean it has to look like a Morgan, but classical lines means the older MGs, even MGAs, MGCs, MGBs–those truly look like sports cars.”

Morgan clearly had this “sports car” thing down for decades, so, even with the advent of the newer BMW-powered Aero 8, it needed an engine to power the classically designed Roadster. Of course, Morgan has had a long history of procuring off-the-shelf engines from other manufacturers, including sourcing them from the likes of Standard, Triumph, Fiat, Rover and Ford.

The company had great success selling the Plus 8, powered by Rover’s all-aluminum, pushrod V-8. By the time Morgan produced the last models powered by this legendary powerplant, it displaced 4.6 liters and made a healthy 220 hp and 260-lb.ft. of torque. But Rover made the last of these engines in 2004, ending a remarkable run that started when the company bought the rights to the engine from General Motors in January 1965.

When Ford began developing the Mondeo sedan in the late 1980s (to be called the Contour in the U.S.), the intention was to build its first true “world” car that would be virtually the same no matter in which country it was sold, with only small localization efforts to minimize costs. Ford split the engineering up between groups in the U.S., U.K. and Germany. While one group developed the chassis, one the body and another the interior, the V-6 engine program almost became an orphan, its development not budgeted with any Ford engineering center at the time. Until the Blue Oval turned to Porsche for assistance, that is.

Porsche has a long history of acting as consulting engineers, so its involvement in the development of the Mondeo’s Duratec V-6 should surprise no one. One version of the story says that Porsche had a project of its own making that it sold outright to Ford. Another source tells us that Ford sought out Porsche’s help when internal conflicts left the project without a home at Ford and Porsche completed the engineering of the DOHC, 24-valve engine with Ford’s longtime partners at Cosworth, who know more than a thing or two about multi-valve cylinder heads themselves.

The all-aluminum V-6 started at 2.5 liters, producing 170 hp in U.S. trim in the Contour when it debuted in 1994. The engine became widely used in Ford products, including sedans, small crossovers, Mazdas and even various Jaguars. When Morgan opted for the V-6 as a replacement to the Rover engine in 2005, the 3.0-liter Duratec was rated at 225 hp at 6,200 RPM and 200-lb.ft. of torque at 5,400 RPM. While the torque figure was down quite a bit from the Rover V-8, the lighter, higher-revving Ford engine coupled to a five-speed manual transmission and a limited-slip rear axle proved a robust combination for the 2,070-pound Morgan. Testers reported 0-60 MPH times just over five seconds, a performance level exaggerated by the car’s traditional, open roadster design.

That sort of performance and the modernity of the Ford power-train appealed to Ellis. For many years, he had owned an MGA and an MGC, but he had had his eye on a Morgan, an admittedly acquired taste, for some time. His interest grew after spending time with some Morgan friends and attending their events. He and his wife, Rachel, began looking around at Plus 8s, but were scared off a bit. “It seemed like, every time we talked to someone, they kept saying they had this problem, they had that problem with their Morgans. Rachel was kind of reluctant, to say the least, to get another car that I was going to have problems with. She likes to get to a place and get back and not worry about it.”

When Ellis got wind of the new $73,950 Roadster in 2005, he decided to seriously look into it. “I said to Rachel, ‘If we could get a Morgan that would be dependable, what would you think of that? Why don’t we go take a look at one?’ Naturally, she asked how much it was. She was a little bit surprised. Her comment was, ‘Well, you’re now retiring. You’ve never done anything extravagant in your life like that. But, if you want it, get it and get it fitted out the way it should be.'”

Fitted out “the way it should be” meant Rachel having a big say in ordering “the most Morgan-looking Morgan we could find,” according to Ellis. Rachel chose the colors, Connaught Green for the exterior and a slightly darker-than-usual Muirhead Ingleston Saddle Brown for the leather interior. Ellis and Rachel also chose a host of other options to very much personalize their Morgan, including the machined-aluminum “organ-type” accelerator pedal, Lucas driving lamps, machined “bullseye” bonnet knobs, leather bonnet strap, wind deflectors, a host of stainless steel accessories, the carbon composite hardtop and the practically de rigueur badge bar for club and event affiliation.

That hardtop can only be used when the entire convertible top has been removed, not just lowered, as there is not a whole lot of storage space in the small Roadster. And that’s okay with Ellis, because he has not removed it in some 22,000 miles over the past 10 years of driving it. Only during the delivery process in 2006 as part of a demonstration at the dealership did he ever bother with lowering and raising the soft top. As for storage space, the luggage rack out back–another option–is a practical requirement, and not just for show if you travel with more than just a toothbrush.

Ellis participated in three Carolina Trophy vintage rallies with the Roadster late in the past decade, along with his close friend since childhood, Norris Haynes, who did all of the driving during the timed stages of the week-long, 1,000-mile TSD rally. The twisty mountain roads of the western Carolinas required a lot of arm strength to turn the unassisted Morgan, so Ellis had an electric power steering unit installed, the only modification he has made so far.

Getting a chance to drive Ellis’s Roadster, a mix of modern driveline engineering and traditional chassis and suspension, is not one to pass up. With the keys in hand and Ellis in the passenger seat, I gladly climb into the car. But the Morgan, like many exotic cars, takes some effort to climb in and out of, primarily to get underneath the low steering wheel. The biggest trick for Morgan to import this car to the U.S. involved fitting airbags, which required a substantially different steering column. Though there is clearly a tilting mechanism visible on the exposed parts of the column, it doesn’t work and probably just came with the parts that Morgan needed to fit the airbag.

But back to the driving position. You get low in the Morgan. Very, very low, though the seats are adjustable. Overall, the car’s 56-inch measured height does not quite tell you how low it feels when you get inside. Much like driving a prewar classic, with its long, narrow hood and separate headlamp buckets, the Morgan gives you more than an eyeful looking down its long, louvered aluminum hood. Given the low seating position, the hood looks higher than it is. The wood dash and black-on-white Smiths gauges complete the classic feel.

With the optional hardtop pretty much permanently installed, the view out the back doesn’t offer too much guidance. Apparently, when the folding soft top is installed and lowered, there is even less to see. Good thing the Roadster is fast going forward.

The transmission shifts easily, the clutch takeup as uncomplicated as that on a Honda. “It’s the easiest transmission I have ever driven,” agrees Ellis. The three pedals do have a fairly narrow space to share in the driver’s footwell, however. The beauty, of course, is in the driving. Acceleration in this slightly-more-than-one-ton car is more than brisk and the engine likes to rev.

I would imagine in a 3,700-pound Jaguar S-type or 3,400-pound Ford Taurus, the engine might feel overwhelmed, the typical driver never interested in bringing it beyond 5,000 RPM into the heart of its power band. But in the Morgan, it revs freely. Though there is no redline marked on the tach, Duratec engines are known to have a rev-limiter over 7,000 RPM, which Ellis admits to hitting from time to time. “But I only ever hit in the low gears–and not when Rachel’s in it, either!” he says.

Passing power is bountiful, and we can only imagine how much faster it scoots compared to the original Plus 4 models of the Fifties and Sixties. Road & Track reported a 5.2-second 0-60 time when the Roadster was introduced. Braking feel is nothing special from the front-disc/rear-drum setup, but the binders are effective at scrubbing off speed in our ride, taken on the outer roads of a rather spread-out and not-yet-developed suburban office park, the sort of place where no one bothers you as you tear around a traffic circle on an almost empty road.

Still family owned, as it has been since its founding in 1910, Morgan knows more than a thing or two about building truly bespoke sports cars for a dedicated group of enthusiasts, like Ellis. “I think a lot of people would drive a Morgan and simply not like it because it’s different from other sports cars. If you’re looking truly for a sports car that has all of the features that everyone thinks of a sports car having, then that’s a Morgan.”

OWNER’S STORY
I think this Morgan is the last true sports car. It has the classic body. It has all the power you need. It drives like a sports car should. It looks like a sports car should. I bought this particular one because I wanted a sports car that would be new and dependable. It has been dependable, and it runs good.

I don’t know anything I don’t like about it. It’s got a hard ride, which is a Morgan ride. It drives very well. It’s got plenty of power. I can think of lots of things I like, but I don’t know of anything I don’t like. If I had to answer the question, “Would you change something on it?” I’m not sure I’d change anything. -Ellis King

 2005 MORGAN ROADSTER
Engine DOHC V-6 with aluminum alloy block and cylinder heads
Displacement 2,967 cc (181.1-cu.in.)
Bore x stroke 89 mm x 79.5 mm
Compression ratio 10.0:1
Horsepower @ RPM 225 @ 6,200
Torque @ RPM 200-lb.ft. @ 5,400
Main bearings Four
Fuel system Electronic fuel injection
Electrical system 12 volts
Ignition system Coil-on-plug distributorless
Exhaust system Stainless-steel tubular headers; dual-exhaust outlets; catalyst equipped
Gearbox Five-speed manual transmission; single dry-plate clutch
Differential Hypoid gears with limited-slip
Steering Rack and pinion, 3.5 turns lock-to-lock with aftermarket power assist
Brakes Hydraulic dual-circuit with power assist; Front: 11-inch AP discs; Rear: 9-inch drums
Chassis and body Steel frame with Z-shaped main spars and tubular cross members; aluminum body with partial wood frame
Suspension Front: Independent sliding-pillar with coil springs and gas-filled telescopic shock absorbers; Rear: Semi-elliptic leaf springs with gas-filled telescopic shock absorbers
Wheels Stainless steel 72-spoke wire wheels, 16 x 7 inches
Tires 205/55R16

WEIGHTS & MEASURES
Wheelbase 96.1 inches
Overall length 158 inches
Overall width 67 inches
Overall height 56 inches
Front track 50.8 inches
Rear track 56.7 inches
Curb weight 2,070 pounds

CALCULATED DATA
Hp per liter 75.8
Weight per hp 9.2 pounds
Weight per cu.in. 11.43 pounds

PERFORMANCE
0-60 MPH 5.2 seconds (Road & Track)
Top speed 134 MPH (factory claim)

PRICE
Base price (new) $73,950
Price (new) $79,606 (optioned as driven)
Market value (today) Low: $56,700 Average: $71,000 High: $92,000

This article originally appeared in the August, 2016 issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car.

Morgan Motors have upgraded its PLM !!

[The Morgan Motor Company design methods are not all ‘old wive’s tales’ or ‘scrawled notes on scraps of paper’ simply ‘handed down from generation to generation.’  

The MMC is employing the latest computer based design and manufacturing tools as they endeavor to produce the products we so enjoy.  (Well, maybe the newer ones . . . )  This news article simply states that they are upgrading to the latest version of their chosen computer design tools.   

I, for one, am pleased that the MMC is not simply complacent with the status quo, and is staying abreast of technology (at least in the design shop), while maintaining those enduring qualities we all cherish, such as the quirkiness of the company and the hand built nature of the cars.  Mark]

Design Rule, a supplier of Dassault Systèmes Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) technology and services has announced that it had been selected to manage Morgan Motors PLM upgrade to the Dassault Systèmes 3DEXPERIENCE platform from SmarTeam.

Back in 1990 Sir John Harvey Jones visited the Morgan Motor Company in the sleepy town of Malvern, Worcestershire, as part of the BBC reality business program Trouble Shooter, where he was surprised to see that the sportscar maker was still making its vehicles in a traditional manner, even continuing to use a large proportion of wood in their construction. Sir John’s advice was simple — modernise, greatly increase production and ramp up your prices.

Yet Morgan turned down his advice, the company has gone from strength to the strength. Today, the cars are still handmade in the Morgan factory and the manufacturer has become a global brand, with a long waiting list for its vehicles. Even the late Sir John admitted that he was pleased that his advice was unheeded.

In the intervening years, however, the cars have become more complex. Customers expect certain levels of quality and there are regulatory requirements for different geographical markets. Whilst the cars themselves are hand built, behind the scenes, Morgan Motors has invested significantly in modern CAD and PLM technology to support the development of their famous model line-up with long-standing partner Design Rule.

Graham Chapman, engineering director at Morgan Motors, said “SmarTeam has served us well over the past seven years, but in order to take advantage of the broader PLM capabilities we saw that it was time to move up to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform from Dassault Systèmes. We have a young design team so we need to provide them with the modern toolset that they need to develop our cars of the future. We also require an environment where we can collaborate with our partners on new and exciting projects”.

Chapman also commented “We have been working with Design Rule for approaching eight years. Having delivered our initial SmarTeam implementation they have continued to support us ever since. Their team understands our business in detail and how PLM can best serve it, so we are delighted that we will continue to work together on this business platform upgrade”.

“Morgan Motors is typical of many of our customers in that we have a very long working relationship with them,” explained Bob Hillier, Managing Director for Design Rule. “The project itself is a good example of British industry investing in the latest generation of PLM business solutions to support the development and manufacture of their product, in this case a prestige brand of sports car.   We are looking forward to sharing more information about the project as it progresses”.