Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Aero 8, 2012< Plus 8, SuperSports, Coupe & Aeromax Update Wiki page for the Aero 8

Not sure that this is strictly correct on the Plus 8 section, spare tyre?

The new Plus8 was introduced in 2012 using the Aero 8 platform, 4.8L engine and manual or automatic gearbox. The body is intended to match the style of the traditional model with the same shape wings and rear panels. It also has an interior more like the traditional model with central dials, removable side-screens and a traditional soft-top. Where the Aero cars have a boot the Plus 8 has a rear shelf behind the seats but no boot. In most cases the owners mount either the spare tyre or a luggage rack.

Missed that:

The rear pannel has a removable circular panel that suggests a spare might be carried, but in practice this is impossible. The fuel tank fills most of the space behind the panel.

The decision not to have pods (headlights) on the new Morgan was taken during the time that they were using Plus 8 development cars and I think there was a Yellow Plus 8 that had Porsche lights fitted! The choice of headlights was very much a question of what was available at the time, initially I believe that BMW were thinking about Morgan using the Cooper S lights, but decided against it as they wanted their own model to be the first to launch these lights.

Well done Ale, I've just looked at the new Aero 8 Wiki site and there's some great content. However, there are also some bloopers including in the first sentence on the Series 1 "and designed by the firm's designer Matthew Humphries." I'm afraid that this is incorrect as Matt Humphries was not involved in any way with Morgan at this time. Matt's first Morgan car design was the AeroMax, he sent the basic design of it to CM when he was at Coventry University and joined Morgan on a KTP programme, see LinkedIn Incidentally, I picked up my first Aero 8 - Series 1 'Kermit' in 2002, having delayed the build somewhat.

The Aero 8 shape evolved in the traditional Morgan way of form follows function and the main players were Chris Lawrence, Charles Morgan and other members of the Morgan Engineering Team, and Norman Kent of Survirn Engineering Ltd - especially for the tooling of the Aero wings.

Radshape were heavily involved in the chassis (Graham Chapman, the current MMC Development Director was working for them at that time) and Superform with much of the body panels, both companies eventually producing for MMC when the car was launched. I'll reread the Wiki entry and let you have any possible other comments in due course.

I believe this is mostly incorrect and a long standing untrue rumour, the quoted text is correct as I updated it yesterday from the Morgan literature I have, and that was quoted from Chris Lawrence himself.

Whilst there is some truth behind using what was available at the time, it was not down to BMW as to why these were chosen but rather the odd shape. Chris saw the lights and noted the ascue angle was perfect as it solved an aerodynamic problem at the front of the vehicle.

I will have to double-check my source and make sure just incase either way..