Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Aero 8, 2012< Plus 8, SuperSports, Coupe & Aeromax MOG Mag Teaser

Morgan "likes" the bespoke element - so maximising the common components across all 4-wheel Morgans should be their first aim. How much cheaper would the aero chassis become if the numbers went up to Trad levels - would that impact on the Trad pricing?

If under the skin the cars are basically the same then it allows customers the freedom to create the car they want without Morgan incurring heavy production costs. It also would allow factory upgrades.

Lets say the Aero tub is adapted to a new range of engines and that the mounting are fairly consistent - and match up to either a manual or automatic box. It means you could start with a "sporty" classic (200ps 4-pot) with sports suspension and manual gearbox. After a few years, as bones creak and muscles tire, you could swap to the "touring" suspension - and then to an autobox - all the while keeping "your" Morgan.

Ken,

I agree...

But I cannot see how any bonded tub with IFS & IRS can be made for the trivial sum MMC pays for the Traditional ladder frame chassis.

So, I think they will have to keep the Trad chassis for the 4/4 and +4, but i'd like to see an Aero based +4s, +6 and +8 with perhaps Aero 4, Aero 6 and Aero 8 as the touring equivalents.

The small producer Type approval used by MMC allows up to 1000 of each homologated type, so they could, if they had the space/resources and so on 1000 trads and 1000 Aero based cars a year - for sale in the EU, assuming there was enough demand.

You are living in cloud cuckoo land Peter!
Volumes of production like that would require a new factory and huge investment. The family run business and therefore the essence of Morgan would be taken away and there would be a risk of ending up like Lotus, passed like a hot brick from one foreign owner to another.

It was hard enough going from 10 to 11 cars a week

Absolutely. Plus of course one would have to be pretty sure that there would be a steady demand for 2,000+ cars a year, which as far as I can see is not the case. If there were, we would be seeing massive queues of buyers for the current production levels, and we'd be back to the 8-year waiting lists.

Peter Morgan had it right - keep the market under supplied, and work within existing investment capacity. This is true for all niche suppliers, not just Morgan.

Completely agree, trad body on modern chassis I doubt will ever happen. New EU regs in coming years will not allow it anyway.

I love my Morgan with all its flaws and there are many but i think the company has got away with blue murder for many years regarding warranty and design flaws too numerous to mention.The case in point the three wheeler some of those boys especially abroad have been off the road for six months.Can you imagine the carnage if production was increased to the level discussed,Hamwich got it spot on keep the market under supplied within existing investment that is the key to Morgans past succes and future.What is in doubt is Morgans ageing poulation and i count myself in this will things change we will have to see .


Em

I was always led to believe that forthcoming requirements for side curtain airbags would require a move to DHC style doors, there being insufficient mounting for them on a roadster door?

Perhaps the reason there is not a waiting list is that Morgan is not meeting the potential customer demand for more modern underpinnings. I would imagine that many buyers of fully optioned Plus 4s and most buyers of Roadsters would not be put off by the higher price of such an offering. Given the additional cost of the engine, airbags, etc. there is not such a huge difference between the cost of a Roadster and a Plus 8.

I talked to Mark L at MMC about side bags.
There are now seat mounted airbags that make the door issue less of an issue. There is one bag in the base and one in the back and between them they fill the space between seat and door. The Aero based cars are wide enough to allow this, the Trads probably are not.

He said developig the seat bag instalation was affordable, the homologation less so.