Here’s something you don’t see every day (link in headline):
The Plus Four gets a 2.0-liter TwinPower Turbo good for 255 horsepower at 5500 rpm and 258 pound-feet of torque between 1000 and 5000 revs. You can choose between a six-speed manual or an eight-speed automatic transmission. Get the automatic, since it gets to 62 mph quickest, in 4.8 seconds*.
The Plus Six gets a BMW B58 TwinPower Turbo inline-six making 335 hp at 6500 rpm and 369 pound-feet, with 62 mph coming up in a brisk 4.2 seconds.
Those horsepower numbers are relatively tame by modern standards, until you remember that Morgans are made with a wooden (ash) frame which makes the average Morgan body weigh considerably less than, say, Lizzo after a chicken dinner, so the Beemer engines make the cars go like hell… that is, until you get to the corners, whereupon the Morgans corner about as well as the Morgans of, say, 1930.
But anyway, those aren’t the changes; these are.
A new hood keeps the water out of the engine compartment and eliminates the need for those hood rail fasteners
“Vastly improved” seals around the windows and doors, again to keep the rain out, along with some noise
A new Morgan “wings” badge, the first new badge in 10 years
Active sport exhaust lets you set the sound level of your four- or six-cylinder
New seats offer more comfort and better bolstering
Lockable storage
More lights inside
USB ports!
In other words, Morgans are being brought into the 20th [sic] century. Other than that revolting “active” (i.e. “fake”) sport exhaust system, all the other mods have been in practically every other production car since about 1966.
All that said, however:
Yeah, like I wouldn’t take one if offered…
*No, don’t “get the automatic, since it gets to 62 mph quickest, in 4.8 seconds”, because the joy of working the Morgan’s gears is far greater than getting to 62mph in seven-hundredths of a second quicker. If the goal is to get to 62mph quickly, don’t get a Morgan; get a Honda Civic Type R (for two-thirds the price). The only difference is that you won’t swoon with joy every time you walk into your garage. You moron.
What I want to know is does it still have a Lucas electric system.
Well, none of the lights are on in the pictures, so…
Possibly the lights ARE on, but you just can’t see the normal “warm glow” produced by the headlights because the photo was taken on the one day a year of sunshine.
I had a Morgan +8 from 1979-1981. It was incredibly impractical, (everything apart from me leaked), but I was young and used it for daily transport in London because: I had more aggravation from that one car than every other car I had before or since put together BUT I also had more joy from that one car than every other car I had before or since put together. (I can’t remember why I sold it – another wrong decision)
Have had a few dealings with Morgan owners and and a mechanic who usually had a couple awaiting parts -comments:
– Sometimes a few would use the same parts, unusual.
– They used whatever parts -engine, gearbox diffs etc that were available at the time; often leftovers from other companies production run.
– The owners are often fanatics who insist on originality ie whatever rare bits were in it
– Design was often questionable ie the first few +8 used the Rover V8 stuffed in inadequate space and no room for separate torsional bracing at the front – SOLUTION use the radiator as a structural component, leaks within 1,000 miles.
My general opinion – Junk that a bush mechanic would be ashamed of.
“Junk that a bush mechanic would be ashamed of” – That’s about right except that they were a babe magnet……..
If you want a totally impractical 2 passenger vehicle that basically requires the passengers to be outdoors in all weather and want to go really, really fast with maximum thrill & utter fear, go for a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14R.
It goes 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 2.7 seconds with a 1441cc 16-valve, four-stroke, liquid-cooled, DOHC, inline-four engine, 6-speed manual transmission, maximum power – 197.3 bhp @ 10,000 rpm, weight: 593 lbs.
Nope, I had my fill of British sports cars 50 years ago when i was willing to put up with completely unreliable and impractical cars and owned a Bugeye and a TR4. I don’t understand how Morgan continues to find buyers for new cars when the used market is already filled with used examples that arrive already pre-broken.
Like the buyers of “Crypto Currency” , it only proves that there is a continuing supply of Greater Fools .
I used to do the Brit Car thing starting with a Bugeye Sprite in 1962 and had a lot of fun and it was an easy car for do it yourself. Then I got kind of stupid in the 1980’s and picked up a 1958 TR3A, strong engine with overdrive and it was fun to drive for a garage pet and I could do a lot of my own repairs the old Brit cars burned a lot of oil and I was told they were performance cars and designed that way.
My wife wanted a sports car and I found a good deal in 1983 on a 1969 E-Jag for her and it was a total pain to keep running, she asked me one day if something had to break every time she drove it and I told yep, it was designed that way and it was complicated to keep repaired one to two hundred dollars in parts per month in the good old days. Kind of like owning a boat, great fun buying those cars and delightful to sell them at the end of the 1980’s.
Ditto!
’69 Triumph GT6+ – great fun to drive when EVERTHING WORKED, about 2% of the time !
Spent more time keeping it running than running it. Lucas electric, cardboard transmission cover,
side draft carbs, metric EVERYTHING, parts take 2 weeks & $$$$ to get, etc.
Maybe they’ve gotten better but I’ve learned not to ‘experiment’ with shiny new ge-gaws that cost a lot of money.
In any case the ash ( wood ! really ? ) frame tells me all I need to know. Pass.
Now, if they could only do some upgrades to the “Trike”…as if I wouldn’t take one right now “As Is” just for the novelty.
You should be ashamed of yerself, thinking about such foolishness at yer advanced age.
And that’s why I went to the bank this morning to make a modest deposit:
Round trip – 52 miles.
Transportation – 2012 Triumph Bonneville.