Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Plus Four, Supersport & Plus Six (CX & CXV Generation Vehicles) Has anyone seen the new Morgan coupe?

The new coupe will be built ‘in plain sight’, according to MOG magazine

I wonder whether the company is going in the right direction. More cars costing six figure sums? A spritely, well built, stripped down 4/4, 1.6L non-turbo manual gearbox, for £40-50k is surely missing from the line-up?

I would agree, but MMC has been moving away from the affordable simple sports car idea for a quarter of a century now. I suspect it's got a lot to do with realisable margins and a desire to position the brand. When they have tried it in the past (remember the 4/4 Runabout concept?) it hasn't been very successful.

As far as I can see, the only 'right' direction for the company is one that offers the best chance of survival, and selling comparatively exotic vehicles to rich customers who aren't particularly price sensitive is probably seen as a better bet than trying to convince a motoring enthusiast to buy a Morgan rather than than a Caterham or an Ariel or an MX5.

The Supersport certainly is in a different league to the trad & they are targeting limited high value editions & the P4 in the USA as I understand it with volumes of c 1200 car per annum.

Whilst it can make it more expensive to get into new car Morgan ownership experience , hopefully it will make the more affordable older Morgans a more attractive proposition and help maintain demand amongst the younger generation, to keep the dealer network and support services viable for years to come. The dealerships still need volume to pass thru their showroom and workshops to remain viable......and deliver those services with the same approach and dedication you come to expect of the established longstanding dealerships

For Morgan to survive it clearly needs to improve quality control, embrace increasingly more complex and demanding legislation with massive overhead and investment costs, whilst still taking advantage of smaller volume car manufacturing concessions that maybe available. So there is only one way and it means prices must rise and with it the marketing position as clearly the traditional customer base maybe more price sensitive than Morgan revenues it needs to generate to survive. Whilst it maybe frustrating for many, it's great to see Morgan still there, producing some quite dramatic and beautiful cars and still (for now) remain quite true to its traditional brand image.

I've done two recent factory tours one in December and the last one on Tuesday and they were busy, everywhere full of cars, quite a contrast to the visit I did about 8 years ago, where it seemed a more casual approach to making cars, very different. The recent visits seemed more orchestrated, more disciplined, the work force average age seemed much younger. TImes change, so much so the more Supersports I see and especially the greater range of colours I see going thru the factory, the more I grow to like them.

That will not be the case in France . The new dealer bpm doesnt know nothing about the trad.

That's the same with some of the newer UK dealerships, they will be CX specialists. I was chatting to someone who had gone into a less established UK dealership looking at a CX without a spare wheel. The question was asked what do you do if you get a puncture and the salesmen told them Morgans don't get punctures.

On my visit that included the Design Centre our guides were managers. They described changes they had introduced to increase production and improve quality. Having run a QA department I was encouraged by the changes from the old school ( even post Harvey-Jones and Charles Morgan) eras.
More jigs visible to reduce variation of fit, assembly stages broken down to more stages for for simplification and less for each person to worry about at their stage, flexibility in workforce to help with fault correction and bottleneck clearing. Daily briefings covering key aspects/trends being monitored.
The 3- wheelers' production was moved to its own dedicated area as volume was low so less variation and changes to deal with in the main production line. The Plus Fours to the US was a big boost.
The Design Centre had some older models in there plus the under cover car. The workshop had mule cars being checked ( used by staff to build higher mileages, I did offer but was declined), some test mods being tried out. STRICTLY no photos! i do remember one side window/sidescreen ( could haveen either) being jigged up on what looked like a CX though.
I did tease one manager about the positioning of the usb sockets on the Plus Four, and no 12V socket. I gave him 4/10 for that. We both chuckled as I described it as keeping a Morgan Quirk in place.

Any indication of a Plus Four with a CXV chassis?

No, but I live in hope. I'm guessing US homlogation makes it a no goer sadly. A P4 Supersport manual at a fair price could tempt me