Cards on the table – I don’t really “get” Morgans. I’ve never understood the appeal and have always maintained that if I want a car that looks old, I’ll just buy an old car. I realise not everyone thinks this way – clearly – but there we are.
The Morgan brand has largely stood for the same thing over 50 or more years – tradition, tradition, and, er, tradition. A Morgan is and was styled to look old even when new, and is targeted mainly at men who drive wearing snap-back driving gloves, a flying jacket, scarf and goggles. You know it’s true. Building their unchanging cars using the same hand-built methods since before the dawn of time, Morgan know exactly what their customers want, and those customers have always known exactly what they were buying, most of the time, and there’s a lot to be said for that.
Founded in 1910, and named after the founder, Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan, the company remained fiercely independent until being bought by an Italian investment company InvestIndustrial in March 2019.
Morgan 3-wheelers have a cult following
The company built exclusively three-wheelers until 1936, when the first Morgan 4/4 made its appearance, the name indicating that the car came with a 4-cylinder engine and four wheels. Engines came from Coventry Climax initially, then the Standard Motor Company, and later from the Triumph TR2/3/4a with the introduction of the Morgan +4 in 1950. The +4 is probably what comes to most people’s minds when you ask them about Morgan – after all, they’re still being manufactured 71 years later.
Once the company moved from the days of the Mog 3-wheeler with its outboard-mounted motorbike engine at the front, body styles have remained constant, with running boards and exposed headlights on the Plus 4 and Rover-engined (well, Buick-engined) Plus 8 models and even today, the hand-beaten body panels are assembled around ash frames. Creature comforts were few, and weather protection was primitive, though things have improved over the years.
This formula was successful for many years, with waiting lists of between 6 months and up to ten years at times – nowadays the average wait is six months – as all classic car enthusiasts know, nostalgia has a powerful pull; after all, it’s one of the main reasons we love classic cars.
The Plus 4 and Plus 8 were the mainstays for the Malvern-based company from 1955 onwards, and even attempts to modernise their range in 2000 with the Aero 8 and the £110,000 (!) Aero Max were severely compromised by the need to retain visual links to the past, resulting in cars that if they were children only their mothers could love. There’s a common design thread running through all these models, even the Aero, the company’s first new design since 1964 – big front wings sweeping back towards the rear in the form of running boards, rearward sloping radiator grilles, bug-eyed – and occasionally cross-eyed – headlights… Morgans are nothing if not individual.
This steadfast refusal to modernise the look of their mainstay models – even as their performance was continually improved and more modern materials began to be used eventually – has meant it can be hard for the casual observer to tell if a Morgan Plus-8 from 2017 is any newer than one built in 1975, although that may well be the point. They look like nothing else, are instantly identifiable and that look seems to be what their loyal customer base wants.
The smaller-engined 4/4 also continued to be built right up to 2019, visually almost unchanged from the Series II model launched in 1955. The Plus-8 – basically a Plus-4 with a V8-engine – was a pretty decent performer, as one might expect, and got even quicker as engines got bigger and bigger, until 2012 saw a BMW 4.6-litre V8 installed, and it’s fair to say that a Plus-8 thus equipped is a pretty quick machine.
The Plus-8 was replaced in 2018 by the Plus Six, which – surprise – came with a BMW 6-cylinder unit, with an aluminium body but still on an ash frame, and still with running boards and exposed headlights. It is, however, even faster, with a claimed top speed of 267kmh/166mph, though I’d be very reluctant to try it. Oh, and prices start at £85,000…
So all this considered, it’s hardly surprising that I didn’t recognise the sleek, smooth, bright red sportscar I saw at the Silverstone Classic a couple of years ago as a Morgan until I looked much closer and found myself thinking that this was a car they should have built. That car was a red Morgan SLR, and it was gorgeous!
To be fair, these stunning sportscars were not actually built by Morgan, and the initials stood not for Sport Leicht Rennsport but for Sprinzel LawrenceTune Racing, the surnames of John Sprinzel and Chris Lawrence, who combined to produce the car, using the chassis, running gear and suspension of the Morgan Plus 4 and the 2.1-litre 4-cylinder engine from the TR4 but tuned to push out over 150bhp, so the SLR’s were quick – 135mph top speed and 0-60 in 6.1 seconds – not too shabby for the early 1960’s!
Starting in 1961, only four were built – three using the +4 as the base, the fourth (which was actually the first to be built), on a TR4. While generally similar, each one is slightly different, though all are aluminium-bodied. There is also a “continuation” SLR in existence, built around a TR4 that was spotted at the Spa 6 Hours by Andrew Boggis a couple of years ago.
The three Morgan SLR’s reunited, and the “continuation” car
The styling is streamlined and ultra-cool, with headlights mounted very low wither side of the front grille. The long bonnet with its raised wings and slight central bulge has echoes of the Lotus Elan S2, the profile has hints of both Corvette Stingray and E-Type. Not a bad trio of influences.
The SLR’s were campaigned in sports-car racing through the ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, including with Chris Lawrence himself behind the wheel and with reasonable success, giving the lighter Porsche 904’s a hard time in several events. All three Morgan-based cars are now in the UK and seen regularly at Goodwood and Silverstone, each finished in a different colour – red, silver and green, with the TR4-based car being blue.
There was apparently an intention to produce more, but Lawrence suffered injuries in a road accident that kept him out of action for several months and the momentum was lost.
I can’t help thinking that Morgan missed a trick here, that they should have engaged with SLR to find a way to build road-going versions of these superb looking cars – they still look modern today, despite being almost 60 years old and are far better-looking than any other Morgan, to my eyes, at least. Priced right, I’m sure they would have found a market and given Morgan a model line-up that could appeal to both their traditional customers and to people who might have otherwise never looked in the direction of the Malvern Hills for their sportscar fix. What do our knowledgeable readers think?
There’s a detailed history of these rare and beautiful cars on The SLRs (gomog.com) – we’ve borrowed a couple of photos from there; also photos from Goodwood and others – if we have used your photos, let us know so we can credit you.
