Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Charles Morgan Tweet

"I understand CM was not the CEO that time so who actually is responsible???

He may not have been the CEO, but I think he still wielded tremendous influence on management decisions. Quite handy really, because he can just walk away from the bad decisions and take the credit for good ones.

My mate in South Africa who has an M3W is about 25st (about 160kg) and only about 5'7" tall. I can assure you that being a passenger in that means you end up hanging out the side like in the TT!

Dave, I think we all need to keep in our mind that MMC is a business, with respect to the ECU for the 3.7, whilst I do not necessarily agree with the approach taken by MMC, I appreciate that they have to try and minimise impact financially. In this instance the only thing I can say is that a substantial amount of of time, effort and money went into getting the replacement ECU for the 3.7 sorted. Whether it should have ever got to this in the first place is another question, but it did and at least MMC got a solution sorted. I did investigate sorting it myself, which would have involved trashing the whole dash and canbus, and I found an ECU developer in Italy who would have supplied a programmable ECU that would have worked, I think you can guess the cost, and pitfalls in this. So all things considered the cost being asked is probably reasonable, although I do understand those that think it should be at no cost.

I think one of the joys of the ser 1 roadster was that mmc had obviously really done their homework well and everything was perfect, all the electronics had been perfected and even the position of the gear lever was exactly right. I exclude the silly nylon front bushes of course! And the noise it didn't make.
Nick
Ps someone at the top told me that Charles was against the 3w until he drove one of the protos and then he was all for it.

A few years ago, a French politician named Georgina Dufoix, exonerating herself from blame for an almighty cockup, declared that she had been "responsable, mais pas coupable." Case dismissed, by herself.

Nick, I'm not that familiar with what issues there were or not with the S1 Roadster, although I do not think there have been many reported. However when I test drove a couple when looking I personally did not like the gearbox or the ratio spacing, which I found tedious, but like all Roadsters drove nicely. As for the 3.7 Roadster, I think unfortunately it has got a bad name mainly just because of the ECU issue. In hindsight I think MMC should have taken this up with Ford at the outset, which I think they tried to do, but Ford are large and MMC are small fry in comparison so I believe there was no movement this way. I have also talked to Mustang tuners and racers in the USA and the problem is known over there. Primarily on manual 3.7 Mustangs, manuals being an afterthought by Ford. I believe that by the time it was realised that there was a rev hang issue the Ford engine development team had moved on onto other projects and the Cyclone was being put to bed for any future development. So MMC were in a bit of a Catch 22 situation IMHO, the rest is pretty well documented. I would say that IMO the 3.7 Roadster is the best Morgan I have driven, mind you I have avoided test driving a new Plus8, for fear of being tempted to the dark side.

I had a long chat with Steve Morris at the factory before he got the top job and while Roadster production was suspended pending sealing the deal with Ford. Ford were not easy to deal with and by the sound of things had a take it or leave it approach. So I understand the decision to adopt what was offered. But I don't expect to pay another wedge of money on a £50k car to resolve rev hanging. That's all.

I've also had the same comments about Ford's attitude to the after market sector. Basically they don't really care.

But it seems BMW does care. Which is why I think that over time we shall see more BMW motors used by Morgan.

I don't think it was that Ford did not care, more that they were not in a position to support development further on the 3.7 engine without vast cost involved and direct impact on other projects/development. I suspect it was left to MMC to decide what they wanted to do.