I know Howard has got up my nose in my previous incarnation as “Jays”but my reincarnation is chilled and as a fellow non Morgan owner I rather like his “other world” approach 🤪
I knew when I mentioned replacing ash with a composite that it would cause a few to respond in the way they did. Owning my Trads the ash frame and hand beaten panels was an important part of the character of the car and in my view was part of what defined Morgan. When I worked as a tour guide at the factory, the wood shop and tin shop were my favourite parts of the factory and during tours I’d often spend time in them with the guys.
But I would look at the Aero bodies and wonder really why they needed the wood frame. Superformed alloy inner frame would have been a better way to go although for the volumes sold it would have been costly.
Now that Morgan has a new owner I am sure that their expectation will be to develop the factory to ramp up volumes. Trads apart ...and I don’t know how long the old chassis can continue...the new chassis cars would suit a better frame that is quicker to construct , be more accurate and lead to better working efficiencies. The wood shop would be a bottleneck for much higher volumes as indeed would the tin shop.
I think if Charles hadn’t rather cocked up his role in the company, his vision for Morgan coming into the next decade would have been to have dropped the classic Trad and moved to alloy chassis alloy superformed body cars like the straight six Eva GT and I bet no ash frame!
