Unfortunately Morgan exploited a loophole in US law that allowed a 3 wheel car to be registered as a motorcycle. Some countries, such as Great Britain and Italy, have specific regulations for 3 wheeled vehicles and they are also covered under EU vehicle classification. These rules are now somewhat outdated and were never really intended to apply to vehicles such as the M3W that have car controls.
Since the dawn of motoring, so you cannot really accuse UK legislators of being quick off the mark. The preferential tax treatment of three wheelers led to them being a boom vehicle in the 10's and 20's with a tailing off starting in the 30's.
We therefore have a situation in Italy where a bike licence and helmet is required to drive one even though no bike riding skills have any relevance for the M3W. The answer is obviously specific regulations to cover this class of vehicle.
I've no idea if such is Italy's fault, but the situation was concreted by the third European directive on driving licences. However, there is a derogation available whereby as long as the driver is 21 or older (the absolute earliest you can get a full/unrestricted bike licence) and has a car licence, that will do. A country does need to activily adopt that derogation - so residents of Italy should be leaning on their Ministry of Transport (or whatever it is called) to adopt this. The UK has, and so has Sweden. Others may also, but I only know about these countries.
It seems that some states in the USA have realised that the M3W is really much more car than bike and I foresee a general clamp down on the category, unfortunately for US enthusiasts.
Australia seems to have seen the situation reasonably correctly and, despite some ugliness in the solutions adopted (not really the fault of the regulations), I think they have got it right. They seems to have accepted many compromises that would make Australian homologation impossible for a car and have approved the Australian spec M3W a minimalist car with a reduced safety spec by comparison to the 4 wheelers. In effect they have created a precedent for reverse trikes with car controls that could be followed by other manufacturers.
I hope, for the sake of our American cousins, that the legislators in the US are looking at framing specific rules for reverse trikes with car controls. If not I suspect it will become increasingly difficult to put such a vehicle on the road.
The most helpful definition in my eyes is to use, 'car bodied' and 'motorcycle bodied' when talking about trikes, and not to directly reference the controls.
