The craft of Morgan Motor Company
They don’t make ’em like they used to. Except at Pickersleigh Road
There’s a dark, gnarled old piece of wood in the Morgan Motor Company workshops that appears part-railway sleeper, part medieval torture device. It’s actually a jig for forming part of a Morgan’s rear wheel arch, and depending on who you ask it’s been used in these workshops for somewhere between 60 and 100 years. The shape of the wheel arch remains the same today, so the jig’s still used.
Morgan celebrated its 110th anniversary in 2019, but it moved to its current premises on Pickersleigh Road in 1914, and there’s so much history in the red-brick buildings that line up on a hill in Malvern, Worcestershire and so many stories to tell, there’s just nothing quite like it.
Today it’s relatively quiet as the 240-strong workforce gradually return to work with Covid-19 restrictions easing, but the tour of the workshops is like a trip back through time, each workshop with its own distinct personality and sensory flavour: first the sweet smell of hot worked wood, then metallic swarf in the machining shop, the hammering of aluminium body panels next door, and finally the rich aroma of Muirhead leather as cars near the end of the assembly process.
Morgan hand assembles around 900 cars a year, and these days you’ll wait a reasonable three to six months for delivery, not the decade of the 1980s, during which some owners would actually die. Britain remains the biggest market with 250 units annually, Germany and France both accounting for 100 or so each, with Sweden, Italy, Benelux and Japan all described as ‘good’.
The entry-level £40k Three-Wheeler gave Morgan an injection of cool in 2012 (the last time it made an all-new car before that was the Aero 8 in 1999), the Plus Four accounts for the bulk of sales from £62,995, and the Plus Six sits at the top of the current range at £81,995 (though there’s room above that for a halo model along the lines of the Aero 8).
Times, however, are changing. Long family owned, Morgan was bought by Investindustrial last year (the family still sit on the board), 40 new recruits have joined in 12 months, and as I’m shown around, the last Plus 4 to be built on a ladder frame chassis is being assembled in the workshops – it’s creaky olde worlde tech that barely got past the 1960s for many makers, but it’s significance means it’s going to an avid collector.
The Plus Six introduced a new bonded CX-Generation aluminium chassis last year (Aston and Lotus use the same kind of process) and the new Plus Four (yes, now Four, not 4) gets a narrower version of the same, and both chassis are made in Northampton.
I drive the Plus Four with its new BMW four-cylinder turbo engine and electric power steering and it’s a huge leap over the clattery old ladder frame cars. The CX chassis is even future-proofed for electrification. Steady on.
But as much as things have changed, there’s much that stays the same: the Plus Four design, for example, still looks identical, even though the 2020 model is 97 per cent new. A wooden ash frame (ash is sourced from Lincolnshire and used because it’s strong, grows straight and doesn’t distort) is still placed on top of the new bonded aluminium chassis, with three pieces of ash glued together and then bent to shape in the wooden jig of indeterminate age to form the shape of the wheelarch.
Morgan makes its own double wishbones and stub axles on site, the aluminium panels (except the front wings, which are now super-formed) are still hand-formed over the frame, so that no two panels are ever quite the same and no car is truly symmetrical, just like E-types and Aston DBs back in the day. Prang your car and you’ll have to bring it back for some bespoke tailoring.
When the cars are mechanically fit they’re pushed over the road to be trimmed in leather, painted in spray booths on site and then inspected for any imperfections under the unforgiving glare of white strip lights.
It’s a fantastic place to visit, and you can. Morgan has been busy giving its visitor centre a refurb, and soon you’ll be able to turn up, tour the museum, the factory workshops, and also get to drive the cars, once all this Covid-19 business is over with. Have a look at https://www.morgan-motor.com/factorytour/ for more info.
