Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Pride of Ownership

A story I´ll never forget:

One day we checked out at a hotel.
In this moment a group of 7 or 8 older people arrived (no one younger than 70 years).
As I startet the engine (I have to confess that my car has a ssteel sport exhaust) one of the older ladies with a rollator -(she was about 75 years) said to her neighbor "doesn´t it sound very nice?".

Some suspicious looking people in that photo!

Bud
4/4 - Stanley

S'Funny, I thought the same!

They do seem to get more attention in France - maybe like a plate of frogs legs in a Wetherspoons, anyway I was in Morbihan and a mother and child were paying keen attention so In the spirit of entente cordial I asked if her daughter would like to sit in my Morgan.

Frog sprog promptly jumped straight on to my creme seat with muddy shoes like it was a trampoline while mother looked proudly on - won’t be making that mistake again.

We had parked in the carpark in Mumbles, heading to Verdi’s for a snack. As I was putting the tonneau cover on two elderly ladies were passing.
“Oooooh there’s gorgeous!” Said one.
I jokingly replied..” Me or the car?”
“Both” was her reply.
I let them sit in the car for a photo.

So many options for jokes, so little time.....Was she sitting on the seat or your lap?

I enter this discussion with trepidation - questioning Morgan pride of ownership is likely a bit like telling someone his wife is ugly! But I have seen the same sort of reactions with several makes of car and bike and about the only thing I can say with confidence is that no one gets the reaction with a Peugeot or Skoda!

The reaction is entirely dependant on the reactee. A petrolhead is much more likely to gawp at the McLaren F1 than the Morgan. A classic car man would prefer an old Bugatti. A biker might ( god forbid) prefer a Hardly Ableson. I had one of those once, with forward pegs, peanut tank, ape hangers and lots of chrome. Got many admirers mostly with beards, pot bellies and halitosis. You didnt question their judgement.

Colour is an issue. Ferrari no 1 was Rosso Corsa and got lots of requests for rides from mostly middle aged women. Ferrari no 2 is TDF blue and draws little attention until the engine starts. In some ways the F type was the best with notes in feminine handwriting left under the wiper blades - I never followed them up. Appearance matters and that is one attraction of the Trad.

In the end I am suspicious of " pride of ownership" since ownership is hardly an achievement. Its simply a matter of exchanging sufficient beer tokens with the previous owner. And its a bit like the way you see Harley riders looking at their reflections in shop windows as they pass by. Scowling all the time as real tough guys do of course!

The point of them all is driving fun.

Morgans seem to attract attention from non petrolheads, because of the shape, which is different from nearly everything else.

Bikers in general seem to appreciate Morgans.

Petrol heads generally have a fixed mindset, so unless they had one, are not so likely to engage.

When we first became ‘proud owners’, we drove up to Warwickshire to stay at Ettengham Park Hotel on our way North for a few days. As we parked up in front of the house, the hall-porter came out to welcome us, and he was so excited about the car, every other word was ‘f******’, which was weird, more so because he was in full concierge uniform with bow tie, waistcoat, the full Monty. After we checked in, he showed us up to our room, &, on the way, he explained that he suffered from Tourette's Syndrome &, when he got excited, he would swear uncontrollably.

When I asked him why he had done so when we had arrived, he explained that, although their guests would often arrive in expensive cars like Porsches, Bentleys, Range Rovers, etc, seeing our Morgan was so amazing, he couldn’t help himself 🤗.

As a footnote, as we were unpacking, the room phone rang, and it was the hall-porter - swearing and shouting even more excitedly than before! Between the “f” words, I could make out that it had started raining, and we had left the roof down on our car. He wanted me to run down and he would help me to put it up “ before the beautiful leather gets wet!”.

We found in Italy particularly south of Rome cars would drift across the lanes on the auto strada so passengers could take photos, though one driver did try a selfie!
At first it was worrying when cars & lorries beeped their horns on seeing the car.
The best one though was when a very cool Harley driver with low bars throbbed past and just raised his thumb upwards of the handle bar. Very Fonz like.