Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) stag replacement - not surgical

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Great car if you can live with the colour

John, thats almost irrelevant. She isn't interested in my motoring activities at all. We've have well over 100 cars between us both and she sent remotely interested in recreational motoring. She's owned the sporty cars in out time, XR3i, Golf GTi, even a BMW convertible. Out of the lot her preference has been a mini clubman. The best she ever managed is 'I don't mind the Stag" but she still wouldn't come out in it. Not a chance of getting her in the Morgan.

She 'might' have some interest in a modern mini convertible but I doubt it.

I had one after a CV8. Now that was rememberable but the Jensen Healey not I'm afraid. It did everything moderately well, bit of a Ford in that respect, but it leaked oil, had a poor quality hood and rot was beginning to show its face at the seam at top of rear wings. Didn't miss it's passing therefore, but it was for a 911S Now that was probably the most rememberable, despite the rot as it was pre 1970

You need one that someone has wasted a fortune on

I have a pal who is into his series 1 MX5: he does hill climbs, auto solos and sprints.

Yes they rust but are easy enough to fix: the biggest reason for MOT failure, he tells me, is the fuel tank rusts out.
MOT failures are cheap.
To replace it you have to drop all the rear transmission and suspension.
When replacing the tank you can easily replace the brake lines and deal with any rear sill rust. Parts are cheap.
With suspension upgraded and everything fettled it is a quick, comfortable car.

Holy thread revival, Batman.

ahem.....

deed has been done, I am now the proud owner of a 2006 bright red MX5, 2.0, 'sport'.

Managed to drive the Morgan and the MX5 on the same day - same grin, different reasons.

Excellent choice. A friend has an identical car from the same year and has been very pleased.

Interesting... SFG wins the prize for the most common sense in terms of priorities when buying old sports cars when he typed " You need one that someone has spent a fortune on" For it seems that us baby boomers have spent an inordinate amount of cash or borrowed money on buying vehicles of one kind or another and restoring them or paying a mix of bodgers or craftsmen alike to restore them to some degree or other, the hard part would seem to be to determine that which has been bodged enough to get it through an MOT and that which has been reasonably restored.

As an example, I suspect I may have coined the term "Patchwork Porsche" and given the current "market" evaluation of air cooled Porsches there will be many an old dog out there who`s owner thinks it is a fine representation of the marque, whereas it may have more patches than a patchwork quilt and some of the welding not much better than blue tack... I suspect even the skilfully welded patches are unlikely to improve the crash worthiness of the monocoque in a shunt to match anything like the original crash protection parameters...? Of course none of that that is important until it REALLY IS important...?

As I have typed before, a pal bought a 964 in 2009 for £16k and today in the same dealer has a very similar spec 964 is available for circa £52k.... I am no economist but I suspect that general income trends across the populace have not risen similarly, thus it seems the "market" for air cooled 911 Porsches seems somewhat overheated..? By way of a "classic" market comparator, perhaps an 80`s /early 90`s +8 seems very unlikely to match similar value today..?

Thus some classics are valued more than others by the market, and the higher the value in any marque up to a point, it seems the more risk of bodge being present..? If you care to consider that rusty MGB`s in their thousands will have been scrapped, while 911s with even more corrosion than their counterpart MGB will have been cobbled back together... At least with a Morgan there would seem to be far less risk of being caught out with bodge repair processes, given the lack of box sections and monocoque cavities that abound in modern vehicle design, the sort of places where water finds a way in, or condensation builds up to the extent that these machines can and do rust from the inside out, preserving shiny paintwork till it begins to bubble hinting that all is not well below...

I suspect ALL the problem areas of all Trad Morgans are well documented to the extent that any buyer with a reasonable measure of understanding will know where to look and none of those areas are likely have the ability to hide the reality of their condition too easily..?

Triumph Stag... really..? What a rot box, but those guys at Triumph were ahead of the game inventing the Targa with the TR4 and the T Bar design in the Stag, pity that the build quality was so poor in the Stag, another pal of mine had one which must have been first registered in Atlantis given the degree of rot we had to deal with many years ago... I still have pictures..!!!!

Who mentioned CV8, I cut my V8 teeth, singed my eyebrows and banged my head on the underside of the fibreglass bonnet messing with one of those in my youth, but that is another story...(-: I moved on to Interceptor in later years where I owned two, one for spares and the other a runner.... 6276cc of sheer terror on cross ply tyres that were almost as old as me at the time... Jensen Healy... badge engineered with and engine derived from a Bedford CF van, like the Lotus Elite of the time and not one of my favourites for sure...

Now when you talk of a fun good value sports car it does indeed seem that the Japanese have cornered the market for reliability and fun, with the MR2 equivalents and MX5 seem popular amongst Morgan owners, though surprised that they have steel fuel tanks..? I had thought with the newer fuels that plastic tanks were more in use these days...? On the value for money stakes with zero "investment" thinking attached, one of those little cars seems to have reasonable potential indeed for fun open top motoring.

The whole classic and investment thing seems to have been fuelled since the seventies by us baby boomers and likely to slow down and eventually collapse with our own slow down..? Thus the investment thing seems a tad risky and more so in certain areas of the classic market....?

Buy for the ENJOYMENT of ownership of a classic and be prepared for it to loose value in the market in time hoping that in your ownership can/does justify that which you have spent on it, regardless if you want to have a garage queen, something to tour the world, or throw up the hills or splash through the mud in, whatever..... ENJOYMENT would seem to be a reasonable if not ideal RETURN on the INVESTMENT...? If on the other hand you buy an expensive "classic" in the hope it might off-set the first year or so of nursing home fees, if/when that may come to pass, or in time be of value to provide for others when we drop off the perch.... I wish you good luck with that strategy....

Perhaps also worthy of consideration is the climate change effect which if indeed legislative action is taken, will undoubtedly affect the market in classics as well as much else...? Had my old +8 more importance to me as a financial investment, as opposed to a wonderful bit of machinery to appreciate even if it just sits in the garage, perhaps appreciated as a Penny Black to a philatelist or an old master to one who can appreciate it hanging on his wall, but then I wonder what level of appreciation is for the market value of each relative to the value of ownership.... Hmm?

Me..? As I have typed before my old Morgan has earned it`s place in the garage as it has provided memories that both for my good lady and I at the time felt a tad adventurous over a period of years, to the extent I feel it owes me nothing and that seems a comfortable place to be at this time, for it was not always that way.

These days it takes more bit effort to enjoy my Morgan on the road than it once did, and there was a time when I thought to replace it with something a tad less RAW, yet still sporting... however there it still sits providing pleasure by just being there...In the past I have enjoyed it in rain hale and snow over rough roads and quite a few thousand miles on warm dry Southern European tarmac, though less inclined to do so these days as it would involve a degree of discomfort that it never did in the past..... and I suspect there may be others who think similarly....Thus my Morgan was not purchased to be a garage queen, however as both I an the Morgan have aged together it has evolved into somewhat of a garage queen whereas I have not aged quite as well as my old Mog has.... (-:

Am I a just perineal profit of doom.... I wonder..? (-:

And here it is.........

great little car enjoy - they are a complete bargain too!

One thing you have to do though is drop the ride height of the front suspension - when launched - the gap between the top of the front wheels and the wing was huge and remains so!

New springs - (no stiffer than factory - so the ride does not suffer) are available and the car looks so much better 2 inches lower.