#morgan

51 years ago, my beloved Grandfather emigrated from England. Despite being a man of modest means, he immediately went out and bought himself the biggest, V8 powered American sedan he could buy (the exact make remains obscure – it tends to change every time my grandmother tells the story), swearing off British cars and his cursed MG Magnette for life. He would be just as bewildered as I am that there is any demand for the Morgan 3 Wheeler in the United States that would result in U.S. sales.

Rattle off a list of the buzzworthy EV makers that seem likely to achieve the “holy grail of EV development,” a multi-gear electric car, and chances are that firms like Tesla, Fisker, Th!nk or even a major OEM like Nissan will make the cut. You probably wouldn’t consider the ultra-conservative British sportscar maker Morgan to be in the running, as they still build body substructures out of wood… surely the brand that’s most stuck in the early 20th Century seems an unlikely candidate for EV technical leadership. Think again…

When I was a budding young copywriter in 1973, older, more settled advertising types smoked a pipe, had two basset hounds at home and came to the office in a British racing green, topless Morgan. In wintertime, their lips were blue. Our generation was too drunk to even drive a car – even in the more lenient 70s. Now, Morgan, one of the last remaining true British carmakers, is going back to its roots: Three-wheelers.

As we reported earlier, TTAC is a subscriber to Morgan and Co.’s industry sales statistics. This means that current and detailed stats going back to 1993 are available to us, and we’re going to figure out the best way to share them with you. Like most things in life, there are pros and cons. The detail and amount of information is staggering, but it’s very affordable to us. It will save us time we don’t have to pore over numbers from manufacturers and compile them. But we also have to accept the segment categories as Morgan compiles them, and as you’ll see, there are times that doesn’t always jibe with how we intuitively categorize cars. Frankly, that’s getting harder to do all the time anyway: is the Flex a mini van or a crossover? Morgan sends us Excel spreadsheets and some basic charts. They’re not exactly exciting to look at, which is why we often succumb to spicing up these sales snapshots with a bit of eye candy. We’re going to be playing with different ways to present this stuff, so please let us know what works better, or not. I know you will anyway.