I wonder whether the company is going in the right direction. More cars costing six figure sums? A spritely, well built, stripped down 4/4, 1.6L non-turbo manual gearbox, for £40-50k is surely missing from the line-up?
I would agree, but MMC has been moving away from the affordable simple sports car idea for a quarter of a century now. I suspect it's got a lot to do with realisable margins and a desire to position the brand. When they have tried it in the past (remember the 4/4 Runabout concept?) it hasn't been very successful.
As far as I can see, the only 'right' direction for the company is one that offers the best chance of survival, and selling comparatively exotic vehicles to rich customers who aren't particularly price sensitive is probably seen as a better bet than trying to convince a motoring enthusiast to buy a Morgan rather than than a Caterham or an Ariel or an MX5.
Whilst it can make it more expensive to get into new car Morgan ownership experience , hopefully it will make the more affordable older Morgans a more attractive proposition and help maintain demand amongst the younger generation, to keep the dealer network and support services viable for years to come. The dealerships still need volume to pass thru their showroom and workshops to remain viable......and deliver those services with the same approach and dedication you come to expect of the established longstanding dealerships
For Morgan to survive it clearly needs to improve quality control, embrace increasingly more complex and demanding legislation with massive overhead and investment costs, whilst still taking advantage of smaller volume car manufacturing concessions that maybe available. So there is only one way and it means prices must rise and with it the marketing position as clearly the traditional customer base maybe more price sensitive than Morgan revenues it needs to generate to survive. Whilst it maybe frustrating for many, it's great to see Morgan still there, producing some quite dramatic and beautiful cars and still (for now) remain quite true to its traditional brand image.
I've done two recent factory tours one in December and the last one on Tuesday and they were busy, everywhere full of cars, quite a contrast to the visit I did about 8 years ago, where it seemed a more casual approach to making cars, very different. The recent visits seemed more orchestrated, more disciplined, the work force average age seemed much younger. TImes change, so much so the more Supersports I see and especially the greater range of colours I see going thru the factory, the more I grow to like them.
