Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Interesting price for a CX plus4

I agree, the quality is massively increased, it is night and day different to a trad car......is it better........🤷🏻‍♂️???
To be honest though they had a pretty low target to beat.....

It is, in itself, for a morgan, a really good car..... However.... compared to the competition it's very average at best.

The Morgan trad's quirky, leaky, rattly, low tech, impractical, outdated, vintage look, vintage feel, variable quality, readily personalizable nature is what make/made them such a special motoring experience. Unique in this day and age. A USP that kept the factory busy and sales brisk for decades.

I accept that the factory/Italians felt they needed to 'move on' and update but I still feel very strongly that they lost the 'special-ness'. MMC carried on stubbornly building a car that was decades out of date, bucking the trend of the rest of the world's motor manufacturers who rushed to modernise and embrace progress.

MMC.... stick to what you're good at, building relatively cheap, lightweight, low tech, fun cars.
Leave all the rest to the big boys.

When I first went looking for a Morgan it was because I wanted a 1950's standard of driving experience, because I wanted to have fun learning how to coax the performance out of a car that worked with me better as I learned its input requirements, as I became more skilled at it. The fact that it was beautiful was an added bonus. I wanted a car to love and to enjoy. The "trad" fulfilled all those things for me. I used to love the shock evident in Porsche drivers when I kept up ( up to about 90 after which I was happy to back off) in my little antiquated sports car. I enjoyed getting wet. Over the years as traffic environment has changed I've dropped engine sizes just so that I can still find that fun in the driving. The CX models look lovely but, by being updated to modern standards, they cannot fulfill my requirements. No criticism of prospective or existing CX owners but for me the new cars are a pastiche of an old car if they drive like a modern car. I mean, automatic? Just my opinion, I wouldn't expect younger drivers to agree with me and I absolutely see why MMC need to update the cars to stay in business and I fully see that at my age I'm being left behind. Quite right too, the world looks forward not backwards. So I'm glad times change, but for me, I wish they had carried on making the old cars as well, although I see quite clearly why they couldn't.
It's just a different client base required to survive.
Price or investment value has had nothing to do with my ownership decisions
Having driven my wife's very lovely Volvo today, where everything is automatic, lights, wipers, gears, brakes if it thinks you aren't concentrating, it will find a space and park itself.......but the driver is reduced to basically steering it and even that can be affected by what the car brain thinks. And every input has a minute delay before the car reacts....a great thing for a long uninvolved journey but I was aching to be back in a real driving experience by 4pm.
Nick

Nick w, very nicely put. Is a Morgan still a car that a new Mick Jagger of 2024 would buy? How long can Morgan hold on to the body design? (if younger buyers will no longer have a connection to the history of the shape). Even Morgan can't live on a few people who just want to appear "different". There are far fewer than that who have any connection with the Morgan shape who are older today.
On the other hand, what impression would remain if a Morgan were to look "somehow more modern"? It would have to be a really big hit. But in that case, no one would forgive any technical weaknesses. It's almost a dilemma.
I don't want to appear pessimistic, I love the brand. But I don't think about myself, I think about the future of MMC. Will there still be young people who recognize the philosophy of a car that has been reduced to the essentials and want to have it? Especially if this car abandons this reduction to the essentials for various reasons.
Please do not misunderstand. I am not referring to anyone who is currently enjoying their Trad or CX. I'm wondering what it will be like in 10 years' time.

Until a couple of years ago I lived just around the corner to a sixth form college which I had to drive past to go anywhere. The reaction to the Morgan from the kids at the college was amazing - they loved it and just wanted to talk about it and find out more. I would think that they won't care about the CX vs Trad debate; it's likely the CX would be pretty basic to them in the same way as my trad was (and still is) to me. I personally think the styling is timeless.

From the listing on Collecting Cars: "This Morgan Plus Four is a smartly specified example of the charming British sports car, which has been used as the selling dealer’s demonstrator model". So it's the Brands Hatch Morgan ex-demonstrator, and still shown on their website for sale at £80K
https://morgan-kent.com/brand-new-2023-morgan-plus-four/
Nice colour combination and spec, but shame that nobody even bothered to mount the PlusFour badge properly

Todays game…spot the errors from this googled statement:

Why are Morgan cars so special?
Peerless attention to detail, highly skilled artisans, the highest quality materials, today's Morgan sports cars represent a unique mix of traditional craftsmanship and the latest in vehicle technology.

If only!

From memory this is around 30% depreciation

LM62

Surely that's a trade description issue....?
Advertising standards......?
😆

I reckon you have it 180 degrees out. The history book of british motoring is absolutely full of names where the maker didnt modernise and embrace progress. Just go to any classic car meet to see what I mean.

I hope Morgan will be the exception but I fear not when a new Plus 6 costs more than a 911. Premium pricing for a non premium product is a route to failure - Rover tried it as the last gasp. Not to mention Alvis, Jenson etc.

In my youth in the 60s I was a petrol head and I would look at Morgans as the equivalent to the MGB, Healey 3000, TR etc. Similar price, similar performance and even similar engineering. You cannot realistically say that the old Trad was similar to the MX5 as the MGB' current replacement.

This of course is all from a business perspective - there is no rational accounting for some of the owner emotions seen on TM

Yes I saw that John, bit of a bargain as it includes the optional auto 'box and Hardtop