Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 What's Your Speech

Yup. You guys do know your three wheelers! I'd never heard of Berkeley before. The driver said he had replaced the original engine with an old Mini one and had added some chassis bracing (apparently they originally came without any so the car used to flex rather a lot!).

I was once asked:-

"How long did it take you to build?"

To which I replied:-

"Well, I had to get up early this morning".

The closest Berkeley to us is a 4-wheeler in the same color as the one in the picture.

But as I understand it they had an air cooled 3-cylinder 2-stroke with a 4-spd motorcycle trans. It is front wheel drive and had chain from the motor down to a jack shaft of sorts with two u-joints in the front at both steering knuckles.

The guy had it for sale and was looking for around $6k. Too expensive for my blood. He also said that he had the motor apart as he couldn't get it running. He said that the crank had been pressed a part and two of the three pistons were timed together instead of 120 degree out of each other.

I was cute though, but way small.

The Berkeley would have been nice with four wheels. A family friend had one a very long time ago.

Understatement 're the flexing.
My brother's shimied so bad we used angle iron from our bunk beds to brace it.
Another time one of the front wheels came off at speed - luckily we were on a straight so as three wheeler became a two, all I could do as passenger was leap over to the drivers side as best I could as the front wheel booled off into the distance.
We landed gracefully with no harm done , the drum brake acting as a skid.
Found out later we had forgotten to split pin the large castellated nut holding the front wheel on. I would be about fourteen.
Happy days.

TOO FUNNY!!!!hahahaha

That happened to me and my granddad in the early 70's in his Austin A35 estate.

We were travelling down the road and this wheel came bouncing past us to which granddad says " some bugger's lost a wheel", at which point the off side rear goes down and near side front comes up.

Brake drum saves the day.

I went off to retrieve the errant wheel which was re-fitted with 1 nut from the other 3.

No damage to anything.

Happy daze.

I was out in my Midget one day when there was a huge clatter and banging noise. I looked in the mirror to find a hammer cartwheeling down the road.
Some silly buggers dropped a hammer in the road, I thought.

Next job I did - no hammer.

As I have a 'date-less' plate on mine it looks a lot older than some and the question I'm usually asked is if it's a pre- or post-war car. I normally reply post-war, to which the questioner typically says "I thought that, the pre-war cars looked a little slimmer didn't they..?". I don't have the heart to say it's post- Gulf War though....

"What year is it?"
"It's an oh-twelve"
"Lovely to see these old things getting used and in such a good condition"

Conversation had in early oh-thirteen, car was about six weeks old at the time.