Category Archives: Morgan Sports Car Related Posts

They just don’t make them like they used to, do they? The Golden Era of driving may seem to be a moving target (it should be up to the mid-’90s by now), but no matter when it was, we know that things were just better then; before all these safety and emissions regulations, before all these nannies, before… well, just before. But if there’s one car out there that disproves the myth, and reminds us that the best days are really the ones we’re living through at any given moment, it’s the Morgan 4/4, a British sports car that’s been in almost constant production for 80 years.

In 1936, most people hadn’t heard of television yet. Babe Ruth had just retired, Franklin D. Roosevelt was running for reelection for the first time, and our three most recent presidents hadn’t been born yet. World War II hadn’t started, the U.S. had 48 states, and the sun had yet to set on the British Empire. In the British West Midlands, the Morgan Motor company was celebrating its 26th year in business by releasing its first ever four-wheeled car. From 1910 to ’36, Morgan had produced a strange three-wheeled, two-seat car with a motorcycle-like V-twin engine mounted ahead of the front axle. And just to drive the point home that we’re living in the golden age, the Morgan three-wheeler was reintroduced in 2012.

But back in ’36, its new model was distinctively more car-like. Dubbed the 4-4 because of its four wheels and 1.1. liter 34 horsepower Coventry Climax inline-four engine, the new roadster wasn’t unlike other sporty cars coming from other small British Automakers. It had a long, louvered top-hinged hood held down with leather straps, low-cut doors, and an ash wood frame under its aluminum body. The 4-4 wasn’t a speed demon, but for its era, it was a nimble and lively roadster, perfect for the sporting British gentleman. In 1937, a four-seat version was introduced, and in ’39, a Standard 38 horsepower 1.2 liter four became standard. It was the last major upgrade the car saw before England was plunged into World War II.

Throughout the course of the war, Morgan was kept busy building anti-aircraft gun parts and frames for military vehicles. In 1945, the British government gave the company permission to get back to building cars, with 50 three-wheelers and 75 4-4s built by year’s end. In 1949, Morgan decided to introduce a larger, more powerful version of its roadster, and call it the Plus 4. With a 2.0 liter 68 horsepower Standard four, and a 4-inch larger wheelbase, strengthened frame, revised suspension and hydraulic brakes, Morgan believed the updated car would be the way forward for the company, so they phased out the 4-4 for 1951, with the three-wheeler following suit and bowing out after ’52.

But there was something undeniably special about the smaller car, and in 1955, it was reintroduced as the 4/4 Series II. Now using the chassis from the Plus 4, the car received a host of upgrades, including disc brakes, a 36 horsepower 1.1 liter Ford four, and revised styling that abandoned the upright chrome radiator grille for a more aerodynamic design. Options included a heater, tachometer, and a “Competition” package that added two SU side-draft carburetors and bumped horsepower up to an even 40.

The 4/4 was a success for Morgan, but it also showed just how small the company was. It was largely unknown outside of England, and by the time Series II production ended in 1960, the company had hand-built just 386 of them. The Series III car bowed later that year, and despite looking virtually identical, its track was widened 2 inches, and it got a new 39 horsepower 0.7 liter Ford engine under the hood. Series IV and V came quickly throughout the 1960s, as the 4/4 received bigger engines, better brakes, and more robust suspension components, but on the surface, it had barely been changed since 1955.

In 1968, the 4/4 hit its stride, receiving the 1.6 liter Ford Kent inline-four. In 1600 trim, the 4/4 would carry on largely unchanged for the next 25 years. Horsepower would reach the high-90s by the end of the 1970s, and in 1984, after 48 years,  the 4/4 ditched its four-speed manual gearbox for a five-speed sourced from a contemporary Ford Sierra.

In 1986, the 4/4 turned 50, but you wouldn’t know to look at it. By then, you could find a poster of the Lamborghini Countach on the wall of every young gearhead’s bedroom, Porsche had introduced its radical all-wheel drive 200-plus mile per hour 959 supercar, and Ferrari was putting the finishing touches on its carbon fiber F40. In stark contrast, the 4/4 had its carbureted inline-four Ford engine, a hand-built, ash wood frame under an aluminum body, and a steering rack that had just been updated for the first time ever. Instead of being consigned to history, the 4/4’s anachronistic reputation had made it a worldwide cult car, and waiting lists were so long that many buyers were left waiting up to a year for their cars.

Safety and emissions regulations in the 1990s were tough on older models, and many would disappear from the world’s roads. Not so with the 4/4, which broke the 100 horsepower barrier for the first time in 1991 with a fuel-injected Ford inline four. Later, Ford’s Zetec engine provided 114 horsepower for standard cars, though between 2005 and 2009, a 125 horsepower “70th Anniversary” version served as the hottest 4/4 ever built. At the 70 year mark, fewer than 10,000 of the cars had been built; a testament to the company’s exacting hand-built standards.

Now 80 years on, the 4/4 is astonishingly still with us, and it’s shockingly similar to the first four-wheeled cars to roll out of Morgan’s Malvern, England shop way back then. A slight redesign in 2009 saw the removal of the car’s nondescript flat bumpers, letting the front and rear fenders fall to the outermost ledges of the car. It uses a 1.6 liter Ford Sigma engine (the same one found in a Focus) paired with a five-speed manual from Mazda, and is now good for 110 horsepower and 97 pound-feet of torque. Morgan says the car will go from a standstill to 60 in eight seconds flat, and top out at 115 miles per hour. Inside, the car has been tastefully updated, maintaining its heritage while not coming off as antique.

A brand new 4/4 would run you somewhere in the low $50K range – that is, if you could buy one in America. Unfortunately (though not surprisingly), they won’t pass safety and emissions standards here, so you’ll just have to be happy with whatever pre-1991 models you can import. Sure, it’s nuts to lust after essentially an 80 year old piece of technology, and you’re likely to get dusted off the line by a Toyota Corolla, but the Morgan 4/4 is a real, visceral link to the history of sports cars, and we’re incredibly lucky to still have it with us today. For those crazy gearheads who want nothing more than to put on a pair of driving gloves and marvel at how things today are the same as they ever were, the Morgan 4/4 is the greatest car in the world. May it live on another 80 years.

British automaker Morgan has announced that its four-wheel models will return to the United States after 10 years of absence through the company’s official U.S. arm, Isis Imports.  Previously allowed to sell the 3-Wheeler model only, Isis will, from now on, be able to import the more traditional four-wheeled models thanks to a new law.

The British carmaker has yet to say which models will cross the pond to North America, but it’s likely that customers will have access to some of the vehicles from the Classic lineup, which includes the 4/4, Plus 4, Roadster, and Plus 8.

“While details remain to be finalized, the latest word from the Morgan Motor Company is that they anticipate opening the order books for NEW Morgan cars for the USA, possibly as soon as this summer,” Isis Imports said in a statement. “It is possible that production may begin on USA spec cars before the end of the year.”

Isis Imports is already accepting deposits for four-wheeled Morgans, which are refundable “up until eight weeks prior to the build of your car after your specifications are finalized.”

Pricing information is not available, but expect U.S.-spec Morgans to be a tad more expensive than their British-market counterparts. The most likely vehicle to head this way is the Roadster, which uses a 3.7-liter V-6 rated at 280 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque. Tipping the scales at only 2,094 pounds, the Roadster hits 62 mph from a standing start in only 5.5 seconds and tops out at 140 mph.

Why It Matters

This is obviously good news for U.S. retro sports car enthusiasts, who have been missing out on many no-nonsense British vehicles throughout the years. Caterham ’s Seven, for instance, was only recently imported to the U.S. in dedicated North American specification. Morgan was the second neo-retro automaker that could sell its cars Stateside, but fortunately that has changed, and enthusiasts will have access to one of the very few cars that are still being built with a classic recipe. Sure, we probably won’t see a full lineup of Morgans on U.S. soil anytime soon, but one or two nameplates are better than none. Happy motoring!

Good Show! Morgan Plans to Sell Its Venerable Roadsters in America Again

Call us lazy and unpatriotic, but we don’t tend to read more than the first couple of dozen pages of any bit of legislation enacted by the federal government. Others do, however, and an obscure provision in the so-called FAST Act that passed into law last year—that’s “Fixing America’s Surface Transportation”—is set to have a major effect for a small British sports-car maker.

To save you from reading the whole thing, the act included a clause exempting low-volume manufacturers from most federal standards for replica motor vehicles that are “intended to resemble the body of another motor vehicle that was manufactured not less than 25 years before the manufacture of the replica vehicle.”

And as Morgan has been making several of its cars for many more decades than that—indeed it has just launched an 80th-anniversary limited edition of the venerable 4/4—it means that the company is now getting set to relaunch some of its older models in the U.S. alongside the 3 Wheeler that already is sold in several states.

“The bill allows us to bypass much of the safety stuff,” Steve Morris, Morgan’s managing director, told us at the Geneva auto show. “There are still going to be different requirements in some states, but we’re digging down to see what exactly we’ll have to do. But I think that by the third quarter of this year we’ll be back with some of the heritage models. It’s great, a real boost for us.”

Morgan has sold its cars in the U.S. at various times throughout its 106-year history, but none since the Aero 8’s exemption from rear impact standards and the need to have smart airbags expired in 2008. Yet the limited scope of the exemption means that it won’t be the company’s more modern, aluminum-frame models like the Aero 8’s successors that return—rather the far-older steel-frame “Classic” models: the Roadster, 4/4, and Plus 4. Meaning there will be no airbags, ABS, or traction control to get in the way of what remains the sort of driving experience your great-grandfather likely would recognize.

Not that things are quite as simple for Morgan as loading up a boat with Moggies and steering it towards the setting sun as “Rule Britannia” plays. The bill also requires that any replica vehicles meet modern emissions standards, so no side-valve engines. Fortunately, Morgan’s current Classic line-up is powered by Ford-sourced V-6 and four-cylinder engines that should be capable of making the grade. Cars also will have to abide by different states’ replica registration laws and procedures.

“We’ve got to sort out the compliance, but as we’re using the Mustang 3.7 and the 2.0-liter direct-injection engine, that should be doable—we just need to work out a cost effective solution,” said Morris. “We’ve also got to sort out dealers and distribution.”

If all goes to plan, the Morgans should be back in the U.S. by the end of the year. You’ll want to don your finest tweed to celebrate.

England-based Morgan Motors is out to prove it’s not as old-fashioned as it might seem by developing a handful of electric and hybrid models.

Backed by the British government, Morgan is injecting £6 million (a figure that represents about $8.5 million) into its Malvern, England, factory in order to develop clean drive trains with input from two UK-based firms, Delta Motorsport and Potenza Technology. The money will primarily be used to expand the company’s research and development department, to hire new workers, and to boost its annual production capacity.

Morgan’s managing director, Steve Morris, explains the firm is adopting electrification to significantly reduce its fleet-wide CO2 emissions and to improve its cars’ gas mileage. Ultimately, going green will also help Morgan sell more cars annually, and it might enable the firm to outgrow its niche status by earning a bigger slice of lucrative markets such as China and the United States.

The first regular-production electric model in Morgan’s illustrious, 106-year history will be the production version of the 3-Wheeler-based EV3 concept (pictured) that was shown last summer at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Set to go on sale before the end of the year, the experimental concept uses a small electric motor that zaps the lone rear wheel with 101 horsepower. It briskly reaches 60 mph from a stop in a little over six seconds, and it goes on to a top speed of about 155 mph.

The British car maker explains that the electric motor is much lighter than the gasoline-burning V-twin engine that usually powers the 3-Wheeler, which helps offset the weight added by the bulky battery pack. All told, the 1,212-pound electric 3-Wheeler has a total driving range of about 150 miles, and topping up the pack takes approximately four hours.

The EV3’s drive train was developed in-house, well before the British government awarded its £6 million grant. Morgan’s next-generation electrified power trains aren’t expected to hit the market until 2019 at the earliest, meaning the EV3 will be the only eco-friendly member of the car maker’s lineup for the foreseeable future.

With Britain recovering from World War II, Morgan introduced the new Morgan +4 sports car. Sales were very limited not helped by the scarcity of steel supplies. The Morgan factory needed to sell in the global market and there was no better place to give visibility to the brand than the Le Mans 24 Hour race. Their attempt in 1952 didn’t go well!

Morgan’s next entry to the greatest sports car race in the world had to wait another nine years, when the baton was picked up by privateers Messrs Lawrence and Shepherd-Barron. That didn’t go well either! Then the following year, Morgan replicated the success of the pre war years – but this time they went one better and famously won their class.

This book tells the story of Morgan’s adventures at Le Mans in 1952, at Monza and Le Mans in 1961 and at Le Mans in 1962. It includes extensive biographies of the lesser known Morgan competitors – but what they achieved outside of motor racing was scarcely believable. Numerous rare black and white and colour photographs have been used drawn from private collections, many of which have never appeared in print before.
Morgan International Adventure II is my new book, the sequel to Morgan International Adventure. It is available now, priced at £36.00 plus P&P