Richard, it is indeed quite amazing what a careful application of makeup can cover up, be it a patchwork Porsche freshly painted or a lady of the night with bright ruby red lips, though I feel I must stress I have had some years of contact with the former, but no contact whatsoever with the latter....err..well.. at least not that I know of...(-:

The nearest I got to buying a new sports car was when I bought my +8 from Kevin early on in 2002, at the time such had been my education as to that which a new Morgan might be, having started out on the fledgling MSCCDG, and Morgans at Autox, to migrate on to eMog, learning all the while of the many ..err...foibles attributable to Morgans both old, and brand new right out of the box. I sure knew what to expect by the time I had to have one...(-:

I guess without my knowing Lorne had been looking around for a Morgan for me, I having typed up a resume of my mechanical past, and asked the question WHICH MORGAN of the interweb community...(-: Apparently it was John Worrall (of the book Original Morgan) who came to know that Kevin intended selling his Morgan, I guess as the result of Kevin perhaps buying stainless Morgan bits from Heart of England Morgans during his +8 rebuild, no matter the linkage, it was great to be afforded the opportunity to buy a hand rebuilt Morgan, recreated by a highly skilled garage business owner, who knew well the many foibles that existed in his customers Morgans, to incorporate a degree of care in it`s reassembly in order to try to ensure that many were ironed out.

So there was I, a canny Scot who had juggled a few spanners (thanks Colin(-: ) rubbed a bit of filler and sprayed a few gallons of paint in my time, standing inspecting a vision of perfection in the form of a Morgan that to anyone with an educated eye, oozed time and effort that had been invested to create it... It was only a question of how much Kevin..? NO bartering, I did not even drive it, Kevin took both myself and Sandra out for a run in it, individually of course..(-: deal done, simples..(-:

Having enjoyed three Southern European adventures with increasing confidence in the +8`s ability, on completion of each trip, my growing confidence in Morgan`s original design of the +8, more than justified my original assessment of the machines worth, when compared to all that I had read of the negatives before arriving at the point of buying my own Morgan.

As you suggest Richard, the M3W guys seem more like the average Morganeers of old like Lorne, Button and many more, it seems all to simple to ramble on like an old man....(-: but I tip my hat with the greatest respect to the three wheeler guys who persevere seemingly against the odds, weather included to take on adventures exceeding those I would have contemplated in my Land Rover, let alone a three wheeled open top vehicle the size of a an aircraft cockpit.

I gave up m/cycling in my fifties when I required to wear glasses, bad enough a steamed up visor but glasses too... and now thinking of giving up on my Morgan on age related issues... Oh well, how fortunate was I to enjoy all that I did, and for as long as I did, though hopefully I might have a year or two yet, to continue enjoying some degree of sports car driving, though I suspect to do so requires a machine with a tad more ..err..insulation from the elements... Time will tell. As they say in this part of the woods, Maybees Aye..Maybees NAW Translation if needed, perhaps yes or perhaps no... laugh2