Deja Vu at Malvern Link

... repeating a journey he made almost thirty years previously. So has much changed at Morgan's Malvern headquarters in three decades? Eric shares his impressions with JUST CARS.

The chief memory of my visit to the Morgan factory at Malvern Link about thirty years ago is of a mature-age chap, cloth-capped and dark blue bib & brace overalls over a tweed jacket, sitting in the room where wooden components were steamed into shape. He was boiling a kettle on a Primus, not to steam wheel-arches, but to make a cup of tea. Thirty years later he was nowhere to be seen, and timber bits were vacuum pressed rather than curved the old fashioned way, but the old buildings had changed no more than had most of the cars still produced there.

Still, driving in through the Pickersleigh Road gates, there is a row of what look like brick church halls, of a Wesleyan bent. The traditional Morgans are assembled there, moved from the far end's wood shop, into the tin shop, then the wing and body shop, to the chassis erecting shop, then across the laneway to the trim and paint shops. Somewhere there, out of sight, it seems work is progressing on the LIFECar, an even more amazing melange of ancient and modern than is the Aero 8, with its fuel cell system (the brochure says that system "operates by electrochemically combining on-board hydrogen with oxygen taken from the air outside").

But, back to the past where, after all, Morgan makes the money with which to experiment in the future. The traditional Morgans are still the company's bread and butter. The 4/4, Plus 4 and Roadster all come in two- and four-seater form and look as near as dammit to the Plus 4 of around sixty years ago when the curved radiator grille and inset headlights (a la MG-TF) replaced the old flat radiator and separate headlights used on the first four wheeler Morgans. That model saw the introduction of the two-litre Vanguard and then Triumph TR2/3 engines that in Australia at least confused and embarrassed MG-T series drivers who until then had only Singer 9s to deal with. There are differences; more modern engines, disk brakes and the necessary safety items included. But the spirit is still well and truly there.

The traditional Morgans are made the same old way, with wooden framework on a Z-section chassis frame. Some say each Morgan uses the wood from one ash tree, so some would probably see them as not particularly "green." However, screwing bits of wood together no doubt doesn't cause as much pollution as does welding. The Aero 8 isn't really instantly recognisable as a Morgan, though it does have retro styling, of a sort, around its 4.8-litre V8 engine. It doesn't use as much wood, and none of it is load bearing. Then there's the fast-back Aeromax, a fixed head based on the Aero 8.

It was interesting to find that the old three-year waiting list for the older-style Morgans has dropped to between six and 18-months, depending on the model and specification. An Aero 8 takes between six and 12 months.

Prices? The cheapest four-cylinder costs, ex-factory, £31,000 and the Aero 8 £68,000 - say $A70,000 and $A200,000 give or take a few thousand depending on the day's exchange rate.

Visitors are welcome at the works, Monday to Thursday, though there is a charge of around $12 each. They are given a plan of the plant, showing the various buildings, most of which are open to the public along clearly marked paths. For a car factory it is a quiet place, and while the workers are busy they will spend some time explaining what they're doing to visitors. It's a friendly place.

There are still the piles of wood, from planks to finished frames remembered from the early-1970s visit, stacked sheets of alloy, and some boxes of pieces that workers are encouraged to look in before cutting into a new sheet, people wielding tin-snips, drills, planes, G-cramps, spokeshaves, hammers, soldering irons sanders, screwdrivers and other weapons that would be familiar to the people who built the first three-wheeler Morgans there 100 years ago. The paint shop isn't open to the public...on my first visit they hadn't long given up brush-painting Morgans.

Regardless of whether you're a fan of the marque or not, what you can see and experience in the Morgan factory at Malvern Link makes it a worthwhile addition to any car enthusiast's UK holiday plans.

Eric Wiseman