Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms MMC offering any paint and trim combo at no cost

You are mixing up two things, price and cost. Price is what you think the market will bear. Cost is what the accountants believe , and is very much a moveable feast.

The Morgan Extras are like the Porsche extras or those on Ferrari - they are a way of padding the price and the profit margin. Further down the scale and with poorer customers, they are included in the base price. When times are good Ferrai wont even sell you a base car without extras.

Exactly right...in any manufacturing organisation product cost is what the accountants want it to be, the way actual material and overhead costs (wages, energy, paint, etc, etc) are allocated to a finished products depends on where the accountants want to see the profit land. In turn this will depend on how best they can minimise tax and or get grant support.
Price is what the sales and marketing people want and accountants are far less involved. Pricing is a tactical tool to generate sales volume.

I would also put it down to target market and operational efficiency/stock levels. Oh and the British being a bit boring in our colour palate (said the man looking at two black and two silver cars...)

It does annoy me the way options are as outrageously priced from most vendors today. A set of 17" alloys are probably £2000 to a volume customer? So they spend that in the main price anyway. So a £2k uplift for 18" (cost differential £500?) and £3k for 19" (cost differential £700?) that some makers offer just feels a little like gouging. It would be interesting to see how people reacted to real value options. Imagine if you could look at the standard car and then get all the options at cost +20% instead of full price, I bet that would be more interesting than just the paint. You could spec YOUR own car and really tweak it to your taste but feel like you are getting value. That would have been a better offer and dragged people out of the used pool.

If you want a young vibrant customer give them young vibrant stand out colours - certain FIAT is now only the 500 as a volume model so it makes sense.

I guess for Morgan it aligns to the "appeal to a customer looking for something different that stands out" new market approach to justify at £100k. Bright colours to make it stand out and attract attention? They are good looking cars and a lot of the other stuff is great but just a bit samey.

I agree with you re the almost polar opposite of the Pork vs the Plus 8, substance and style. That is probably why I went with the Phaeton, the 968CS, Skyline GTR, not the obvious choice. If it was my only car it would be different. I still forgive the Coupe because it's an event.

I’ve always played with the idea in my mind that if ever I ordered a new Morgan, it would be the ‘black ship’. Black on black on black. Black wheels, black dash, black hood, black paint, black leather, black carpets. Everything black apart from maybe the front grill in silver/chrome just to give the front nose the Morgan personality to balance the headlights which can’t be black of course

Nightmare to keep looking clean and shiny but worthy the effort

I remember Black was always the cheapest option on everything until MMC got wise to the trend in the sports car market of people actually preferring black wheels on their cars over stainless and then it became an additional cost for black over silver painted wires so it all shows that it’s just a way to make extra margin

I had an interesitng conversation about wing beading with MMC, back in 2016 which I can now relate........

The standard wing beading was black plastic. At extra cost you could specify a coloured wrap, which is basically a leather offcut, although it may not always be leather, but that's another story. My red Roadster was ordered by the dealer with red wrapped beading, which is a perfect match. When I compare my red wrap to a red Morgan with standard black beading, I think it looks way better.

When I ordered my Plus 4, I really wanted a yellow wrap, but I was warned by BHM that the factory often used what was to hand and so it might end up on the beige side of yellow, or paler. So......too risky.
I therefore decided to go for a black wrap, because the wrap increases the diameter of the beading, and for me, is a better proportion.

Anyway, the options list specifies a "coloured wrap". MMC then argued that black isn't a colour, so the option is either black plastic unwrapped or "colour" wrapped.

It took a few exchanges before MMC was persuaded that a black wrap was within the scope of a coloured wrap, but I was told at the time not to discuss it further. I got my black wrap, but if that conversation is anything to go by, my Plus 4 is the only Morgan with black wrapped wing beading.

Never realised it was wrapped in leather, I assumed it was a vinyl. Isn’t leather more prone to wear and damage and fraying off?

That's why I said may not be leather Stewart...I think they would use whatever was to hand.

A few years ago at the NEC Classic car show there was a auto trim suppliers (can’t remember the name of the company) selling reels of wing heading in just about every colour

I remember thinking at the time, this must be who MMC use but probably not