Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Plus Four, Supersport & Plus Six (CX & CXV Generation Vehicles) Morgan Plus MY23

One day in the Summer I was parked outside the local post office. A young lady (maybe 11 or 12 -- but not really a babe in arms) asked if my Roadster was Cruella de Vil's car (which would have meant it was a Panther de Ville). Evidently still some room for education....

But that has always been the case (at least for the last 50 0r 60 years). Just at a different price point, and it seems to have worked so far.

Driving Morgans for more than 35 years (startet with 21), I think you can call me an real insane Morgan freak. Love the shape, the feeling, the imperfection and the fact, that I will never really fit in the car.
And I am not the one, who thinks, everything was better in the old days. Because it wasn´t. The new car does not have the flair of the old ones, but they are still nice to look at and they drive really good compared to the pre cx. And by getting older it is a nice touch, that they are now getting comfortable and more usable. I like them and annoyingly I am a potential buyer.

BUT Morgan just does not give me the good feeling anymore to buy a new car for that amount of money. It seems to me, that there are now absolutly great guys and girls, who develop, design and build our cars in a great way. And then there are the inevitable business people who have to start the money machine for the investors and who really don't care whether they sell cars or washing machines because they actually have no idea about our product anyway. People just like that Lord Voldemord from this 80's tv show Troubleshooter.

There are parallels between Wiesmann in Dülmen near Münster and MMC, but there are also differences. The main difference is that MMC is a traditional company and Wiesmann brought out its first retro roadster in 1993, without any history of the brand. But the design was very appealing to the buyers, the quality was impeccable and the technology came from BMW. The price was affordable for this target group. The driving performance was right. The concept was right. A beautiful fantasy roadster with a silky smooth BMW straight-six for about 70.000 Deutsche Mark at that time.
A parallel to Morgan (first Aero platform, then CX) is the BMW technology, it is gratifying that BMW supplies its engines and drivetrains to small companies.
But now we come to another parallel. In the last years of the company's existence, Wiesmann only offered V8 BMW engines. The cheapest new Wiesmann cost about 130,000 € (not Deutsche Mark) in 2012. One could have easily continued to build the 6 cyl. without pain and for more attractive prices. I don't know what kind of consultant idiot had foisted this positioning on them and how it was justified...probably again some kind of platform thinking scarifying the needs to build in the 6 Cyl. any longer…and, of course this typical... "we want to become more noble"...Anyway, one year later Wiesmann was insolvent.
That doesn't have to happen with MMC, but they have lost their grip a bit.
They don't have to build cars for 50,000 customers a year, but it is a sensitive art to reach 1000 customers instead of 80.

If Morgan's thinking is that profit comes with numbers, without considering that buyers are part of the equation, there will be a build-up of cars at dealerships which will only sell by reducing prices.

There's already a whiff of that in the numbers quoted recently of CX cars on sale. There's also a whiff when someone mentioned that the only reasonable p/ex offer was from the factory in exchange for a CX.

The Super 3 will cushion the business while it is new and with high demand, and the diversity of expensive factory tours and road trips, plus Morgan Hire will all help. But in the end, it's a numbers game.

One of the attractions with Morgans for me is that they were pretty classless, I am not 100% sure that that is true anymore?

Classless Morgan were perhaps not quite, but I am not well acquainted with the. British class system. Perhaps "classless" also means that the better middle class could always afford a Morgan.

Only if Morgan becomes a toy as a fifth car for at least 100K GBP then it could go from classless to homeless...and a few too few in the upper class.


PS
At least the beautiful deals of the past are over. Exactly 10 years ago I bought a brand new Plus4 Supersport for 49,900 GBP through my German Morgan dealer. Normally prices were about 20% higher than in the UK but for this limited edition there was no German price list so the dealer gave me the car for that 49,900 GBP converted into Euros. For only 3.000€ the RHD became a LHD because MMC had exchanged all the parts needed for free. Long gone are those prices and it was a very special car.

People buy Morgans for different reasons. I don't think any single cohort of potential owners is enough numbers to sustain the business now, or in the past. It's always been a mix. But what is obvious and the elephant in the room probably, is that as prices go up, potential buyers reduce. To imagine many buyers will be seduced from mainstream makers is just that. The McLaren which Alistair posted just now is a classic example of what you could have.

If Morgan has standard setting customer service that would be a big help, but this was always patchy.

Who mentioned McLaren.... Hmm..? It seems they too can have their share of foibles..?

https://youtu.be/H7qpUqwLS9o

As a Chimney technican, it would be utterly impossible for me to buy a new Morgan today as it was in 2003. I would buy an MG TC or Ford Model A roadster instead...

But I`m happy there is my beloved 4/4 in my garage...