Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Before I bought my first Morgan...........

I test drove my ali bodied +8 back in 1982 at John Dangerfield's Bristol Morgan Dealership the city I was living in at the time. I had looked at a black +8 Lightweight for sale in Lancashire at the same time but the fibreglass skimmed dressing over the wings was cracked/crazed all over.

Before I bought mine I visited the factory aged 15, with my best mate and his parents. We lived next door to each other and his Mum was deciding between a 4 seater or an Elan. Happily she decided on the Mog, delivered in 1968. He is now my BiL and still has the car, a yellow +4 4 seater. Roll forward 10 years and I brought my first +8. From that first factory visit (and believe me the place hasn't changed much since then) I've always loved the cars and the spirit of friendship that comes with ownership.

Like you K, I have a lot of respect for the Turner 2.5 V8, I ran a Dart for a while in the early 80's. You had to watch the Moss box though, not quite as strong as the engine.

Hi,

The Daimler V8 was a superb engine , great design with hemi heads, short push rods, and quite a compact unit . I believe that they manufactured the 2.5 litre for the Dart sports car and the saloons , and a 4.5 litre version for the limosines.

The problem came with the installation in a +4 engine bay. It either had to be mounted higher up , or canted to one side , in order to miss the steering column (no universally jointed items available in those days) . The first installation was done by The Hon Basil Fielding who had bough one of the Lawrence cars (XRX 1) , his team decided to do a lot of "cutting and shutting"in the engine bay even including the frame front. I think they had some success but even at its peak it was never a match for the TR engined cars on the track , but was said to be great on the road. This car was acquired by James Henderson who shipped it to S Africa for many years and raced it at Kyalami and other tracks . On its return to the UK Steve Spencer used it for a while , and whilst it was competitive in the Morgan one;y races , there was limited application outside of the one-marque series due to the non-standard engine. His last development was to turbo-charge it with a a low pressure turbine.

After some years the car ended up at BHM being run by the Swiss Kramer family (father and son) and after much discussion with Rick Bourne and others they covered it back to TR power so it was eligible for HSCC, Goodwood, Le Mans Classic and similar events.

My own car had the engine canted well to the left to miss the steering column , this in turn meant that the float chamber levels were affected and it never really ran well. Even a Daimler specialist in a Mews Garage in London pronounced it a mystery to him why it just would not rev properly. It produced loads of torque and was great on the road , but alas not on the track . It also suffered horrific oil consumption , much of which were leaks I suspect.
Eventually I gave up the unequal struggle , went to TR power and immediately had my best ever season of racing.

After selling my Triumph Tiger XC90 we tried a Caterham.. it made the bike feel refined!
We then hired a 4/4 from a Morgan dealer for a weekend. It was glorious, but needed a lot of revs to be fun.
In it we went up to Williams.. Caroline fell in love with a Black/Blue Roadster...
When I took the 4/4 back to the dealer I said "it wasn't for me" and he didn't ask further.

We picked up the Roadster a week of two later.

Two years later, as a consequence of hip replacement surgery, Caroline asked if there were any Automatic Morgans. The rest is history.

Writing this I realised that I chose neither Morgan, Caroline did.
A lady of impeccable taste, she chose me, too!!

Mog 615 .... Thanks for that ..... Turner was a talented engine designer (he also did the Speed Twin and Bonneville motorcycle engines for Triumph) .... I have heard that there are alternative designs of sump pan that can make the installation easier ..... would be good to see how the engine could be fitted with modern solutions for the steering column or using a wider +8 chassis.... not surprised it struggled on the track .... with the engine being slightly portly the last thing you need is it high up or uncentred. Still an intriguing 'what if'

K

Finding too much time on my hands during Lockdown 1, I sold myself into the idea of owning a Morgan before I'd even driven one. I'd decided that a 3.7 Roadster was the car for me, purely based on reading stuff on the web (although some posts on here nearly put me off).

I arranged to test drive one at BHM that was the spec I wanted, a slight mix up on dates meant that the car had not been 'prettified' by the team yet, so saw it warts and all. A cursory test drive and the deal was done.

A little hasty maybe but no regrets, I've enjoyed this much more that a run of V8 GT cars.

I was 16 living on an RAF base in Bawtry when my brother Bruce Stapleton came home with a Morgan - must have been about 1964. I was SO JEALOUS as (a) he had a driving license and (b) he had this amazing car! It then took around 45 years of wishing I had a Morgan until I bought one from Melvyn - A Roadster - in 2005. I would often look through the window of my brothers garage in Reece Mews (Morris Stapleton Motors) and dream of owning one of their Morgans.. and then later when it became Wyckhams I was still looking through the window!
Now MOG W12 is tucked up in the barn with a lovely photo of Mum on the dashboard as it was a legacy from her that enabled me to buy it.

Always grew up with 'Morgan talk' and photos of Dad in his Morgan, Bought my first Morgan book at 8 (still have it). Went round the factory lots with Grandad in my teens - one of my first solo drives when I passed my test was to the factory with Grandad. My niece has 'Morgan' as a middle name.

Having a fairly chequered youth, and seemingly always partying harder than my wallet, there was never any chance of ownership. However a decade of sensible (ish) behaviour in my 40's meant I had a healthy credit rating and a plethora of credit cards. I could raise about £20K and still manage the repayments without starving, or selling a kidney.

RAB413L turned up at Allon Whites (only 20 miles way) and to be honest, in my head I'd bought her even before I turned up. I wanted a four seater, for practical reasons, and one that Grandad had built. Something needed to go very badly wrong on the test drive for me not to commit. Everything went fine, and she was mine, till death do us part.

A bit like Oliver, I have a little plaque on the dash to remind me of Cyril W Perkins, MMC Wood shop.

Long before I bought my first Morgen a friend of my fathers took me for a spin in his than new +8.
Quite impressive for a petrol head teen and pretty far away.
After regularly seeing this car and visiting the factory in 91 first time it was still pretty far away.
ok - found a simple solution and talked to Herbert and we had a kind of a deal: If he would think about selling his Morgan - he would call me first.
So I was fine for quite a while.
We lost a bit of contact as he changed the +8 for a +4 fourseater.
But at the end he did not forget about the deal and contacted me as he was 83.

He could no use it any more...
As we met to finalise the transfer, he just jumped into the car (roof up) effortlessly to drive from the garage.

So I refused to by it right now as I have seen that he was able to have fun with it.

A couple of months later crawling the interweb suddenly a +4 fourseater found me and I had to get it.
So the two Morgans met and all is fine.
Still open to fulfill my part of the deal as late as possible...

What a great story TBM, very touching