There has been a lot of talk about the double wishbone front suspension, so I would like to put a few facts straight.
I started at Libra Motive in the early seventies, as the second employee, Dave, the first was going back to the GPO as an engineer. I had a racing and fabrication background. Rob was looking after a few race cars and we built a matching pair of formula 750 cars, as well as Morgan work. We also looked after MMC 11
as it was racing in the production sports championship with Charles or Rob driving.
The first double wishbone incarnation dates to the late seventies with Rob Wells and the modsports Plus 8, built to the RAC blue book rules which stated the concept must be retained. Rob named the car MMC 3 in homage to the works. Morgan sliding pillar front is independant, the method of construction was not specified. We used a stock factory supplied Plus 8 chassis and fabricated a tubular front crosshead using Huron F2 wishbones, steering rack and uprights. Rules stated the gearbox output flange had to remain in the same location, that was to stop anybody moving the engine back. Keeping the Moss box it was not difficult to cut 15" from the bellhousing torque tube moving the engine back, keeping the gearbox in stock location. With Rob driving we won the Modsports championship outright in 1981. There is an article about the car on the Mulfab website, home page and click on the 'history' link. The rule book was rewritten end of the year to state sliding pillar must remain as constructed effectively banning the car. Having had too many offers of jobs I left to start on my own. Rob along with his staff, Terry Foxen and Brian Gateson had to cut apart the chassis front to install sliding pillar. Never as quick and harder work to drive. Renamed MMC 4. The car still exists in Switzerland and is raced occasionally.
We moved to Coventry in '94 working from John Eales premises. He was building a Plus 8 race project which I had the task of finishing. We met Klaus Nesbach
in the Morgan challenge with his Plus 8. He was commuting from North Germany towing a trailer. Always having problems. Offered to take his car back to the workshop, fix it and take it to the next race. All he had to do was turn up and drive. It worked and he won his first race. He did a deal with John Eales to buy his race car and for me to finish the project and run it for the next season. Morgan rules for Class A were a single sheet of paper so were rather ambiguous in the interpretation. Keeping the top crosshead king pin bracket, turned a spherical mounting, fabricated a lower wishbone and converted the sliding pillar to function as a McPherson strut using a coil over as spring damper. That was objected to so just bolted in a solid king pin instead. First race at Thruxton Klaus put it on pole in qualifying. All cars were weighed after practice and we were about 80 kg underweight. Unforeseen. Had to start from the back. Bolted in all the weight we could find. Heavy rain for the race with no wet tyres Klaus finished second. Did all the rounds that year and Klaus won the championship outright breaking most of the lap records. His Cadwell record was just beaten by Keith Ahlers about 10 years later. Then the rules were properly reworked making it impractical so Klaus sold the car. The front was put back to the McPherson front and it now has a new life in Germany as a track day fun car..
About a year later Rob Wells asked me for some help to finish a long drawn out project. He was building a new project Plus 8. Had commissioned Spyder, who make the replacement Lotus Elan chassis to do a similar chassis but to take a Plus 8 body. That came with their double wishbone front end and a fabricated de-dion rear. The only main visual difference was the wheels using 4 stud. And disc brake rear. Looked like Triumph GT6 wishbones and front uprights. Rob lent it to the factory for a week where it had very favorable comments, mainly as to why they could not build cars like that. Still owned by Nigel Sill the last I heard.
I had known Dave Rutherford for many years. We crossed paths at the Mog show at Gaydon in maybe 2005. He had one of his front double wishbone crosshead conversions and was keen to show me. Designed by Alan Staniforth, a name I knew well. He had built a sprint and hill climb car for Mike Sedgewick using the front and fully spaceframed. About a year later he rang me saying he was retiring and asked if I was interested in buying the front crosshead project. It was not of any personal interest so I declined. Couple of months later Rob Wells asked me if I could help him with a race meeting in Portugal as he had to take two cars and look after them. Driving down he was explaining he wanted to build another project Plus 8 with proper suspension. I mentioned about Dave giving up and the front suspension. Rob contacted Dave as soon as he got back and a week later turned up at the workshop with the sample crossmember in hand with the instructions
to 'make those'. With an A4 folder of drawings. Nothing on cad. Kept the geometry the same as I trust Alan. He was well into lightweight using 1.6mm so I went up to 2mm sheet for durability and revised the construction to make life easier. Used the stock stub axles modified to take upper and lower ball joints.
Biggest pain was there are three different widths of crosshead, so three widths of wishbones, jigs and steering racks. All the crossmembers had to be the same width otherwise made problems with steering rack lengths. Bump steer was down to zero deflection.
Made the jigs and Rob had the first to bolt into his chassis. Few months later he delivered the chassis to my workshop with instructions to not use the leaf springs
but design, make and fit 5 link axle location with rocker arm rear suspension and rising rate springing. It drove and rode very well. He kept it for many years.
About 2009 I heard of crashed Mk 1 V6 Roadster, hard frontal. Only had 16K on the clock. Broken the steering rack, bent crosshead. Insurance write off. Went to see it and it was straight from the bulkhead back. Ideal to convert. Got it delivered with the plan to rebuild with the front and rear suspension.
2010 Simon joined so it was an ideal project for him to be involved with. Several years later it was back on the road. I had all the drawings on paper, Simon worked with cad so if ever there was a modification required all the drawings were transferred onto his laptop. made life easier and quicker. In three years it was used for a few demonstrations, otherwise it just sat in the workshop. Would cruise at high speeds straight and true, and go over speed bumps without feeling anything.
Everybody who drove it loved it. Otherwise was rarely driven. Eventually was sold through Williams to Richard Adams near Bristol. He loves it but never really goes anywhere so is thinking of selling.
As to how many? Chas and Bob of Mogsport I believe fitted three in the workshop. A couple went to UK dealers, and we sent one to Belgium, one to Romania and one to America.
There is no way the new Mulfab could economically reproduce these, and I don't believe they would know how to.
About 40 hours labour to fit. All the front body has to be removed and bit of chassis cutting. The kit £2.5k so a bill of £6k adding vat about right.
Finally the original Mike Sedgewick race car was sold and went to Techniques for converting to Morgan challenge, so they had to refit a standard crosshead.
Peter Mulberry