Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Plus Four, Supersport & Plus Six (CX & CXV Generation Vehicles) The Plus Six 'bugs me'

I'm sorry but I totally disagree with that. Once the tyres start to skid you will take a longer distance to stop. The only exception is if you really know what you are doing and turn the car sideways as you mentioned below. If you don't know what you are doing you will probably roll the car because as the car starts to spin you will automatically back off the brakes, the skidding tyres will then bite and over you will go. This, by the way, is a clear example of the fact that tyres that are not locked up have more grip.


I saw someone do exactly that when a motorcycle went done in front of him.Without the skill and instant reaction of the driver the rider would have been seriously hurt or worse.

I had a similar experience when out with a trained ex-military person who was the chauffeur and bodyguard of a top insurance company managing director. The car was a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow and he often brought it home if he was out late or an early start was required. Apparently there were some concerns about possible kidnapping at the time and he showed me just how quickly he could turn the car around for a getaway if the road was blocked. He checked to make sure no traffic was around and at about 50 or 60 kph locked up the wheels, spun the car around almost in its own length, and then accelerated away in the opposite direction. Something similar to a handbrake turn but perhaps quicker to put into action. Most impressive.

Interesting debate on both ABS and the Plus 6.

Regarding ABS my thoughts are having no ABS on a racetrack in the dry is much preferred, most systems will have a tolerance margin built in and will intervene to early and cost valuable time to a professional racing driver as well as pedal judder being very annoying. However this is at the pinnacle of motorsport and thus negates much of the real world viability, on a race track the speed is built up and drivers will hit their braking points lap after lap after lap.
In the real world ABS will pull up faster than any non-ABS car on the road in any conditions I believe 99% of the time, providing of course that the cars being compared are identical, have the same tyres, and the ABS system is modern and a good one (i.e. not one of the obstrusive ones you sometimes come across that activates far to early).

Let me explain why - in my experience as soon as you need the brakes on the road (lets assume dry and straight braking) you can hit them at 100% immediatly and use all of their power, with non-ABS you have to build the pressure to the point of maximum adhesion, and for most of us this will add a portion of time that the brakes are not being utilised 100% (this is why EBD exists alongside most modern ABS systems as most people do not hit the pedal hard enough to use the brakes fully). This delay will add significant stopping distance to any test with a non-ABS car.

The caveat to this is of course a professional driver who can apply non-ABS brakes to their maximum ability in a split second on a track as mentioned earlier, but even a professional will struggle to do this outside of a track environment, where the surface varies, is not constant and not-repeatable (as in lap by lap building speed and confidence). Thusly in the real world ABS will stop you faster, in pretty much any situation.


Over to the Plus 6 and I believe it is a good thing for Morgan, "change or die" is a famour phrase uttered more than once before and it is very true, me personally I don't have any interest in one from an ownership perspective - but plenty of people do and that is a fantastic thing, as it means Morgan can continue building other cars I do want such as the 3 Wheeler. With regards to the Trads legislation might well put them to bed one day, but as long as they are profitable and legal I am sure Morgan will continue to make them to cater for a wider audience.
Either way I think the new chassis down the line will give rise to a smaller engined, cheaper manual version - and that will be fantastic.

A lot of good points being made here (joining the thread rather late, I haven't read all 8 pages) however I agree with some and not others.
From my perspective and only having sat in one, it gives me the impression of being the best quality of Morgan made to date; time will tell.

Is it too much of a departure from the 'trad'? Dunno. But when should a car manufacturer stop seeking improvements? It is a fine balance between maintaining the 'house' style and making cars that will sell new, meet changing regulations and the changing demographic of the potential buyers.

From my perspective all new Morgans today are ridiculously over priced.for what they are, but as cars are 10% value and 90% emotion hey ho!

I've been trying to remember as accurately as possible what the driver told me about stopping. I think it was this (and I'm making no claims to have the skill to do this remember, I was just a passive witness...and I was also amazed the car didn't roll over):
I think he said that he flipped the steering and pulled up the handbrake at the same time, then when the car was sideways he stamped on the brakes. The reason this works (!!) Was that stopping involves losing momentum. Some of the momentum was lost in turning the car. Further, when we lock up our brakes we very rarely lock up all four wheels, normally just the front. As the loss of momentum is at it's most efficient when the tyres are locked, if only the front are then around half of max efficiency occurs. By having the handbrake on first he'd locked all four wheels. We stopped absolutely dead. There was no skidding at all. Happily for me I've never seen it again!

On cadence, when I was taught it, brakes were nothing like as good as they are today. And the speed of applying/releasing was nothing like the abs rate. Basically it was taught to me that I should brake as hard as possible to lock the wheels.At the point of lock I no longer have access to steering. Therefore, if I need to steer to avoid an obstacle I should release the brake at which point I regain steering. Steer until I can again brake to travel in a straight line. It wasn't necessarily a fast motion more a sharing of steering and braking alternately, a regular pumping. It isn't fair to say that when the wheels are locked the driver has lost control in this circumstance as the driver has complete control, he either slides straight with brakes on or steers by reducing braking.( Unlike say on ice where the skid does involve loss of control.)

That was all many years ago and obviously in today's world I'm happy to rely on abs but surely I'm not the only person to have slammed on in an abs car and thought Hell why am I not stopping!
Nick

Interesting 'thread drift'...!

ABS... I had this on my Lotus Exige S2 Supercharged cars and also on my Lotus Evora.

Even on track days, I never felt the ABS coming on... or saw it, courtesy of the little ABS light that came on when the ABS was activated. I knew where the limit of the tyres was by experience and feel... not relying on 'stamp on the brake pedal' and hope for the best! Sure... the wheels won't lock. But if you do this in mid corner on a wet road, even ESC differential braking will not be able to compensate for weight transfer and hence un-loaded tyre/road interface. At least with no electronic intervention, you can feel that happening!

I learnt to drive on a 1962 Mini 850! No ABS! No TC (43 bhp!!). No synchromesh either! You learnt from such a car how to drive to the limits of tyre adhesion, cornering, braking. Obviously not accelerating! So I always felt, translated to 'modern' electric cars, that I had an 'advantage'... in being able to 'feel' the interaction and adhesion limits of the tyres... and as such, learnt to drive accordingly, with many 'lessons' in 'get out' options! Cadence braking, steering, weight transfer to get the chassis to move about to assist faster and safer driving!

Young drivers of today have never had this. Sad really. Because, even with all the electronic trickery in modern cars, physics is physics. Friction, velocity. They still exist!

Plus Six. Great it at least has ABS. Still find it hard to understand why they were not able to 'pinch' or translate the BMW 140i powertrain, with TC and ESC etc, into the Morgan. It was obviously an expensive R and D exercise to do so. I juts hope the Plus Six does not end up us a 2019 vision of the 1980's TVR's.

All good stuff. Time will tell a great story here, especially if we re-read this thread in a few years time...

Love my underpowered, skinny tyred lightweight trad 4/4!

There could be two views on that.
1. Is the ancient engineering and lack of modern safety equipment on a Morgan suitable for a car costing >£45k
2. How many other companies provide a largely handmade/assembled product on that scale for £45k ? I remember watching one of the old Morgan youtube videos with Charles talking about a well known shotgun company provide a pair of guns for the same money, What does £45k get you in the BMW three series range these days. Money is no longer worth what it used to be.

I don't disagree that they are a fair chunk of change but perspective and man maths are wonderful capabilities.

One of the reasons, probably the main reason, why just stamping on the brakes does not work is that if you lock the front wheels immediately you do not get the weight transfer to the front. The reason why disk brakes are used at the front of cars (or more powerful brakes in the case of all disk cars) is that the front tyres and brakes give the main stopping forces. This is because in correct braking a very high proportion of the weight of the car is transferred to the front wheels. You see this more clearly with a motorbike when the front of the bike dips under braking.

The correct braking procedure is to increase pressure on the brakes in a controlled way so that the weight of the vehicle transferred to the front places more downward force on the front tyres thereby increasing grip due to a combination of the forces and the increased contact patch. As the weight transfer takes place you can increase the force on the pedal until the moment that the tyres are almost losing grip. At this point you need to adjust pressure to keep it at that point.

I don't do it as often as I should but I highly recommend that those without ABS should practice this on a quiet road from time to time. If you do this often enough in an imagined emergency stop your brain will automatically take over in a real emergency and you will have a much better chance of minimising or avoiding the accident.

This has been previously covered on the forum but the video below shows that the wheels were well and truly locked up before impact.

ABS also has the important job of keeping the rear wheels from locking.
Locking these will make the car rotate around it's centre of mass, and once again, you're out of control.

Do you think that Mog would have stopped if it had abs fitted?

Given the difference between life and death can be millimeters or milliseconds I suspect any improvement in braking can make a difference and in some cases a HUGE difference it would seem. In the case of the vid, who knows how much quicker the poor chap might have come to a standstill given the car he hit was part of the distance involved in bringing the Morgan to a stop...? Given the opportunity to have abs or not in heading towards such a situation which would you choose..?