Video: Morgan factory

SUPPOSE you were in the lucky position to have Morgan's mad Threewheeler on order.

That's the position a friend of Life On Cars is in, and on a trip to see how his Threewheeler was taking shape he recorded this video of life at the company's Malvern factory.

It gives a fascinating insight not only into how the Threewheeler - one of the best cars I've driven all year - takes shape, but also into how its more conventional four-wheeled siblings are crafted and at why Morgan is still quite unlike any other car maker in the country. Having also toured the old TVR factory in Blackpool before it closed and the Lotus plant in Norfolk earlier this year, it almost tempts me to take a trip down to Worcestershire and see it for myself.

If you're a fan of the Threewheeler but can't afford the £30,000 pricetag then you'll probably like this one...

Morgan Aero Supersports

V8 / 4.799 cc / 372 PS / 370 lb/ft (490 Nm) / 0 - 62 mph (100 km/h): 4,2 s / Vmax: 170 mph (273 km/h)

(click images for a larger view)

Fire up the... Morgan Threewheeler

IT'S A new model for the Worcestershire-based sports car builders but not in the conventional sense.

By ditching a rear wheel Morgan are revisiting territory they first trod a century ago, when the company appealed to the newfangled worlds of motoring and biking by fitting tiny little two-seaters with V-twin engines and minimal bodywork. Think of the new Threewheeler, then, as a remake of one of Britain’s oldest automotive adventures.

You’d think that’d make the Threewheeler a frantic bit of fun and it is - but only when you’re happy for it come out to play. Admittedly, it’s not a car you’d ever want to take to Waitrose and if it rains you WILL get wet but for such an outlandish and overt bit of automotive engineering it’s remarkably civil, and it’ll dawdle along as long as you like.

But plant your foot to the floor in just about any gear and the so-bonkers-it’s-brilliant Threewheeler unleashes its considerable firepower in an explosion of noise and speed, which you’re all the more aware of because the wind’s hitting you straight in the face and because absolutely everyone for miles around is looking at you. If they aren’t, they’ll definitely hear you coming.


Despite being friendlier and more manageable than I could’ve have hoped for - at first you’ll wonder where those beautiful wire wheels at the front are, but you get used to it - it is completely unlike anything I’ve driven before. It is a sort of cross between the open-air buzz of a microlight and the vintage style of a Sopwith Camel fighter plane with the deep-throated roar of an old TVR and the sheer punch of a motorbike thrown in.

So it’s my kind of car and - at £30,000 - actually cheaper than the more conventional four-wheelers Morgan fans already know and love.

A full feature on the Threewheeler will appear in the Spring edition of Gr8Life Magazine.

The Morgan Threewheeler is just a little bit mad. That's why I love it

IT'S a little bit like walking through Liverpool One on a busy Christmas Eve naked. Or at least, that's what I imagine it's like.

That's the thing with the Morgan Threewheeler, because you're cold, you're exposed and - although you wouldn't want to admit it - just a little bit liberated. Oh, and absolutely everybody, for miles around, will be looking at you. Jaws drop to the floor. Morgan's latest motor is marvellous for all sorts of reasons, but it's emphatically not a car for anyone who's a bit self-conscious.

The photoshoot Champion photographer Martyn Snape and I did with the Moggy last week for our sister magazine GR8Life was a nightmare, because the Threewheeler's got the same crowd-pulling punch as anything Ferrari or Lamborghini make. In fact I'd argue it's got more, because a Ferrari is at least vaguely familiar whereas a three-wheeled vintage sports car with no roof, no doors and no windscreen isn't. Every time we got the shot set up, someone would wander over with a smartphone and start snapping away themselves.

A leather-clad biker in his middle ages asked us how many numbers on that week's Euromillions he'd need to afford one. Two rotund ladies jokingly offered to pose on the bonnets, Page Three style. A talkative toddler demanded that his equally curious dad found out what this strangely styled car was.

All this from a small sports car that hadn't even been started up.

When you do you realise it makes a bizarrely brilliant contribution to road safety - the S&S motorbike engine, mounted right at the front, is so loud that no pedestrian anywhere could possiby argue “Oh, I never heard it coming”. It is so intoxicatingly and defiantly loud that I have no idea how it got passed by the EU noise boffins in Brussels, but I'm glad it did.

It's not really a car in any conventional sense but a sort of automotive adventure in which you're always the lead actor, playing the role of a plucky British action hero who spends his days bumbling noisily down the country lanes to solve crimes committed at quaint country pubs. Naturally, said hero can't help being a bit of a showoff.

What's it like to drive a £30,000 three-wheeled sports car which looks a bit like a cross between a Blower Bentley and First World War fighter plane? Tune in next week when it gets the full Life On Cars road test treatment...

Morgan 4/4 75th Anniversary Edition

S4 / 1.999 cc / 145 PS / 140 ft/lb (187 Nm) @ 4.250 / 0 - 62 mph (100 km/h): 7,2 s / Vmax: 118 mph (189 km/h)

(click images for a larger view)

Prepare to fire up the... Morgan Threewheeler

IF you think three-wheelers are best encapsulated by Del Boy's van then you obviously haven't seen what's on the way from Morgan.

Daringly styled, proudly patriotic and just a little bit mad, it's hard to tell whether the Morgan Threewheeler is a car at all, because it's missing a wheel and it isn't powered by a car engine. Nor is it every day that a company announces it's putting its very first model back into production - that's like Ford replacing the Focus with the Model T - but then Morgan isn't your average car company. It thrives on doing things differently.

Get your head around it having an odd number of wheels and it's business as usual for the proudly British firm, because while the Edwardian styling is a throwback to the three-wheelers which kick-started the company into business, underneath the skin it's very 21st century, packing its punch from a V-Twin Harley Davidson engine that's been breathed on by American tuners S&S. Like watching The King's Speech on an iPad, it's anachronistic but suprisingly effective.

A Morgan spokesperson said:

"When did you last regard a journey by motor car as an adventure? The Morgan 3 Wheeler is launched to bring the fun and passion back to personal transport. Lift the safety catch from the 'bomb release' starter, hear the massive twin cylinders detonate and choose your favourite destination.

"The iconic design of the Morgan Threewheeler has been updated with 21st Century technology. The powertrain is a V Twin fuel injected engine mated to a Mazda 5 speed (and reverse) gearbox. This provides smooth 'get in and drive' convenience with the thrill of extreme performance. The car is a fusion of old and new."

Southport-based Lifes Motors, who act as the region's main dealer for Morgan, reckon it'll be available for sports cars fans to try from July, and with an expected before-tax price of £25,000 it's promising to provide offer a completely different way to get your automotive kicks.

So are three wheels better than four? We'll let you know when we drive it...

Morgan's 1920s three wheeler is the perfect car for 2011

MORGANS. You either get them, or you don't.

Why, when you can get your sports car thrills from a poised Porsche Boxster or BMW Z4, would you want a car crafted from wood by chaps in the Malvern Hills, topped off with a Thirties throwback body and lashings of chrome? Well, I would for starters.

I was lucky enough to drive one last year, and I loved the utterly alive steering feel, the grunt of the exahust note and the evocative view down the bonnet, and it seems, given the length of the firm's waiting list, that so do lots of you. But to condemn the century-old carmaker as a company which just forgot to take its older models out of production is to dismiss what I reckon could be one of next year's most exciting driving experiences.

As much as I love the evocative idea of Morgan's factory being a glorified garden shed full of plucky British craftsmen nailing old cars together over a cup of tea amid a mist of timbery smells, I know the reality's a lot more space-age than that.

They've not only developed the LifeCar, which blends state of the art aerodynamics with trendy hybrid technology, but also equip their more expensive models not with any old engines, but sophisticated BMW Motorsport powerhouses designed by white-coated scientists in Germany.

But it's their decision to take their oldest design of all - the three-wheeler from the Twenties - and put it back into production that I'm most looking forward to, because when it does go on sale next year it will be the world's wackiest take on making smaller, greener cars.

The aptly named Morgan Threewheeler will weigh half a ton and will keep Greenpeace happy because it has a 1.8 litre motorbike engine, but more importantly it'll look and drive unlike any other car on the market. It's a car that looks like a cross between a Sopwith Camel and a vintage Grand Prix racer, minus a back wheel.

Stirling Moss, who owned one of the originals, said his was “a great babe magnet”. I rest my case.