This talk about the provenance of Super Sports +4's looks like it's an old thread but I've only recently signed into The Morgan Talk forum so nevertheless, old or not, it might be of interest to members to learn a little more about XRX1.
In a 1976 letter I have from Chris Lawrence he explains that Pip Arnold purchased XRX1 in 1963 from Morgans fitted with one of his angled valve, cross-flow TR engines . He acknowledges that XRX was raced by both him and Pip Arnold under his management through 1963 during which period many parts were interchanged between XRX and TOK. I do remember finding various bits and pieces on the car stamped TOK presumably so they wouldn't get them completely mixed up.
XRX was sold to Lady Clare (Table Mates) Ltd (ie Basil Fielding) in February 1964 for £940 (I have to bill of sale) when after one season of racing he instructed 'his man' (in Rugby) to fit the engine from his racing Daimler SP250 because, he said, contrary to Chris L's protestations, the LawrenceTune engine was hopelessly temperamental.
James Henderson bought XRX from Fielding around 1967 after graduating from Cambridge Uni and in 69 shipped it to Johannesburg in South Africa. He raced it extensively in SA and in Rhodesia, where it was VERY heavily crashed. I bought the car in 1971 for R1,800 and returned with it to England in 1980. When I sold the car to Andrew Jackson in 1991 it was carrying the chassis number 5471 which Henderson admitted was a made up number selected at random when he replaced the old chassis following the Rhodesia crash. In a letter dated July 1986 from James Henderson he says the chassis number on XRX when he bought it was 5356 and that 5471 properly belongs to a relatively standard +4 exported to the USA in the early 60's.
I have to question 700GNV's remark that "#4840 left the factory in 1961 to become XRX1" I do not think this is true at all. On the subject of low-line vs high-line bodies I can confirm that XRX is definitely a low-line body and always has been.
On the subject of swapped parts I replaced the original gearbox with a Moss g/box and overdrive assy from a Mk 2 Jaguar while I was still racing in SA. That mod was not a great success - too much extra weight. I brought the original box back to UK with me and sold it to David Cook in Northallerton around 1988. The rear axle was replaced after I stripped teeth off the crown wheel and pinion at Prescott in 1986.
Here's an 'anorak' detail the Morgan historians can ponder: The bodywork across the topmost part of the rear area behind the seats on TOK has (or had) fillets in the corners so the Le Mans hardtop would blend into the body whereas XRX in 1963 had the body made from new with this detail already incorporated. XRX 1 was never fitted with a hood but when I bought the car it was fitted with an identical hardtop to TOK - this is the same hardtop which in 1991 I loaned to Vic Champness to take a mould from when he was rebuilding his burned out +4 SS and which, annoyingly, he apparently copied several times over for sale to others despite a 'gentleman's agreement' not to do so.
If anyone is interested in learning more about XRX1, which gave me a considerable amount of pleasure during the 20 years I owned it, please respond on this forum or contact me on stephen@oblyt.co.uk.
