Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Newtown

Re Howard above:
Given the design of the trad Morgan, it is never going to match the modern car for DESIGN sophistication, but it could still be manufactured in the best quality way for the given design. By that I mean accurately made components, pre-drilled holes in the right place, fully jigged, everything right first time, so that it is built by assemblers and not fitters. This ‘hand-crafted’ business is an excuse for not engineering the job properly. On my factory visit, I actually saw someone using a plane! I also saw another chap fitting the bonnets by trial and error. Far from being more expensive than a £50k ford, it could certainly be cheaper (I imagine the original development costs have been written off by now). The engineering craftsmanship should be applied to improving the processes, not to making the cars.
Well, that’s what I think, anyway.

Good post Howard, interesting perspective

+1

Interestingly, Morgan have a similar niche company to them in the form of Norton Motorcycles.

Norton are in exactly this position now, with low volume/high price strategies for machinery that is yet to be tried and tested, plus a slavish adherence to a racing strategy as a way of publicly testing the technology of new model builds.

They work out of a building at the rear of the grandiose Donington Hall, and are experts at the haphazard and engineering.

I know people who have had a deposit on a new model that are still waiting three years later..

There is still a certain lack of the best Quality management process in too many companies.
The lack of initial design stage assessment and development leads to problems further down the line. I still see MMC as still suffering from some of this as do Norton appear to be?
It was evident in the M3W introduction in particular with the major problems being evident as owners got their cars.
I accept that the hand made aspect of assembly results in less than perfect fit of parts.
On my 2002 car there are several examples. One was the windscreen fit. The wire for the heated screen was under the lower screen rubber seat and the outer rubber trim not tight down on the scuttle. This allowed water to leak through. Cured by teasing the wire back and applying sealant. So....the assembly had shortcomings in wire routing and the screen to scuttle curvatures were slightly out, two easy to solve design/ assembly problems. Hopefully the present build method eliminates such small problems. They all add up to a less than satisfactory end result. Is it a case of “that will do” ? Is there not a formal quality improvement process that looks at assembly? It is these extra steps and mindset that improve quality and brand/customer perception.
Hopefully the Plus6 will be a step forward and potential issues predicted and eliminated.
Build a prototype and ask the questions and look for potential problems during that stage to add to pre-build design work.

Some truth in that but compare Ferrari assembly with MMC.

I bought the Ferrari for completely rational and unemotional reasons. I explained them to who of course completely understood me.

ferraris have no shortcomings. Well not verry many that is

Some brands snd some models within brands are best owned by other people.

It's a big list but Ferrari is right up there!