Thanks for replies. I'm a great believer in having braking and acceleration forces transmitted to chassis rather than suspension although I accept the front suspension on the classic Morgans is a special case. It seems the optional MMC ones do not achieve that directly.
As to whether they are needed or not I can only draw on my greater experience with motorcycle engineering. For very many years Moto Guzzi and BMW produced shaft drive bikes with the bevel box directly coupled to the suspension swinging arm. Torque reaction from this caused the rear suspension to unload so the seat rose under hard acceleration. As this didn't make the bike dangerous under general road conditions it could be argued that a solution was not needed. Interesting though that both companies have developed fully floating shaft transmissions.
Here is an early example of a bike I built up with a custom Tony Foale frame back in the early 80's.
All three brake calipers are attached to mounting brackets pivoting concentric with wheel spindles. Each of these is anchored by a rose jointed reaction arm in tension, direct to frame or forks. Similarly the bevel box is free to float about the rear wheel axis with drive through a propshaft jointed at each end, with a reaction arm also in tension from bevel box to frame, just seen behind wheel.
The handling was like no other shaft drive bike at the time feeling rock solid in corners when under power or braking. Interesting that Moto Guzzi introduced a similar drive system some years later
