Well having just purchased a late 2012 Plus 4 Euro 5a with less than 5k miles, that had been in storage for 4 + years following a bereavement, but prior to that a good service history, purchased from a independent SE car dealership for only £24k with 3 months RTB warranty, the market without question is not what it was.
Whilst it has been serviced before sale etc. it off to Matty at Life's on Monday for a full inspection and service. It will need a new set of tyres, but other than that it goes really well, the ride is amazingly compliant better than any other recent Morgan I've had. Even allowing for the service and tyres I've paid well under prices being asked at Morgan dealerships for a similar low mileage car.
It's rumoured to have been owned by a member of the Kurdish Royal family, although not documented, it was stored in their London garage facility and I found some discarded papers in the very bottom of the rear section that appear to be in Kurdish.
Having bought the 70th and Roadster 4 seater from mainstream Morgan dealers, I wasn't that impressed by the level of preparation/presentation, age/condition of the tyres so replaced them. Within a short time, had to get rear suspension replaced and had a radiator go just outside of the short warranty period. The 70th had one spark plug break off in the cylinder head, they were so rusted in and I paid good money for both cars with full service history.
So in my recent experience it can sometimes be a bit of a lottery out there, full service history stamped book without accompanying invoices to see what was actually done, can be very misleading, spark plugs have to be replaced at 60k miles, many are not even removed and inspected at the annual service, hence they may rust into the head snapping off on removal, .
Coming back to earlier Morgans bear in mind that earlier short door cars can be more challenging to get in and out as you get older and what Euro spec the car is can be very important if you live in or regularly travel in eg Greater London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Bath etc with the emission charging systems in place. This is IMHO impacting on and depressing prices in the wider modern classic and many mainstream pre Euro4 cars are just not moving like they used too. When you test drive the cars, most dealers have a preferred route that's usually nice and smooth, go drive down a less smooth road to test the compliance of the suspension and the resultant ride quality.
Last edited by JohnHarris; 31/08/24 08:44 AM.
