Morgan Motors: More than a car company

A few years ago my wife and I attended the 50th anniversary party of the Morgan Sports Car Club of Canada. It was well run and well attended event but what else would one expect?

Asked to say a few words after dinner, I was honored. Given five minutes to reminisce, I was told to tell a good story, I took ten minutes and told a pretty poor tale. I apologize. The night deserved more. 

For those of you who don't know, Morgans are said to be the first and last of a long line of well respected English-made, traditional sports cars with most ending production in the middle of the last century.

Why is Morgan called first? Because it was founded in 1909. Need I say more? Why last? Unlike Austin Healey, MG, Triumph and the rest, new Morgans are still being made in Malvern Link, England. No longer exported to Canada because of an ongoing dispute with Transport Canada, today the Chinese are big buyers. Check the link: China Morgans.

If this post were just about a car company, admittedly a very old one, but still just a car company, there wouldn't be much else to say. But a Morgan is more than a car; a Morgan is an experience, a philosophy, a global fraternity, a magic carpet on wheels.

Before I bought my Morgan, I first drove a motorcycle and then, when I lost confidence in two wheels, I bought a car, a Volvo 122. The car was safer than the bike but oh-so-much duller. I hated my Volvo. My heart ached for my Honda 305 Super Hawk.

And then, in late December '68, the answer to my predicament appeared in the window of Metro Motors in Windsor, Ontario: A dark green Morgan Plus Four sat in the showroom.

There was only one hurdle blocking my path to ownership. Curly, the dealership owner, refused to sell me the car without first chatting with my mother. I was 21! But, Curly was firm. I lived with my mom and the Morgan would be the family car, a daily driver. 

Curly sought confirmation that my mom wanted to mother a car along with a young son. The answer was yes; Mom loved the little roadster. It brought back memories of the early thirties and the cars my father drove while courting her. Curly acquiesced, and he sold me the car. My mother did not disappoint. Her affection for the Morgan never wavered. In the spring, I rewarded her with a quick trip to Jekyll Island, Georgia, to visit her sister.

 

An Experience 

We left Windsor before daybreak and drove and drove and drove. We weren't rich; we weren't poor but we were wealth challenged. The trip was a gift to my mom. A reward. A treat.

A hotel room was a needless expense. It was, after all, a one day trip. When I got too tired to continue, we pulled into a rest stop and rested. I believe we reached my aunt's shortly after midnight.

I should mention that I had made a similar but shorter trip in the past. I had traveled by motorcycle from Athens, Georgia, to my Windsor home in one day. Leaving Athens at dawn, I had arrived home after midnight. Despite the fact that the Athens trip was shorter, it took almost as long. 

I had to stop and tighten the bike drive chain and later a foot rest vibrated loose. Finding it and all the parts was difficult in the dark. Outside of Toledo the headlamp died. I drove the last freeway miles tucked tightly into the illuminated space behind a transport truck. Tailgating may be dangerous but it's safer than speeding along a busy highway at night with no lights.

Driving a Morgan is an experience. It puts distance back into driving and it colours the experience with pleasure.

Keeping and respecting the past

I love the States, but I worry about those 48 states to the south of me. When I was young I travelled throughout the U.S. First, by motorcycle and later by Volvo and finally by Morgan. I loved that country. And I loved the people - for the most part.

One difference between Canada, at least the Canada with which I was familiar, and the States was the look of their small towns. Their small towns had ego; They had pride.

Their small towns had downtown's lined with buildings that still looked pretty much as they looked when built. I used to stay in small, family run hotels for $1.50 and at night I would wander the halls and investigate the lobbies; I'd talk to the night clerk to learn the hotel's history.

I stayed in a hotel once in which Abraham Lincoln had stayed. In fact, the desk clerk claimed the bed in which he slept was still in use. I believe the story could have been true from the look of the iron and brass beds in the rooms furnished with old, old stuff. In more upscale hotels such furnishings would be called antiques.

Americans seemed to be happy with their old buildings in a way that southwestern Ontario folk weren't. I recall a beautiful corner drugstore in Windsor, Ontario, which was built in solid, red clay brick. It was a classy 1920s structure.

It was a corner store but the building itself did not have a sharp corner; the corner was cut at a diagonal, and I don't mean it had been removed. It always had a diagonal treatment with a beautiful square canopy hanging from two large chains over the impressive wooden entry door. The bottom edge of the canopy was completely trimmed with leaded, beveled glass.

Above the drugstore there were two apartments. A girl with whom I went to public school lived in one. It was small but beautiful, much nicer than my home. It had lots of original, varnished wood trim, wooden doors and original tiling in the bathroom. It looked old, but stately and elegant, too. I loved it.

When the drugstore went out of business, driven out by the arrival of the chains, the simple, painted sign came down and a cheesy, large, white illuminated plastic box went up. Giant, garish letters screamed the store's new name. You couldn't miss the sign as it wrapped right around the building. The fancy canopy was removed to make way for the sign.

The windows and the doors were all replaced with clean, modern aluminum stuff. And the apartments were gutted and rebuilt as four bachelor units. No children would be living above the store in the future. And the elegant brick? Large aluminum panels now covered the bottom half of the building and the top was painted to match the colour of the aluminum. 

I like to think that old buildings are a lot like old people. Leave them wearing their original duds and don't tart them up. It just draws attention to their age, makes them look even older and more decrepit. It makes them look ashamed of their age.

I've seen this sad story repeated over and over again in Southwestern Ontario.

But in the States I used to find old neighbourhoods that had been allowed to age gracefully. Oh, they looked a little worse for wear but it is not a crime to look old - especially if you are. These buildings had painted signs when built in the 1920s, or earlier, and now decades later, at the worst, they had simple neon ones. There were no plastic illuminated boxes to be seen - and no aluminum cladding or cheesy vinyl siding.

Now, these observations were made some decades ago. Things aren't as positive in the States as they once were. The Yanks are still are not as big on heaping indignities on their old buildings as we are here in Canada; Fewer buildings in the States must endure the painful humiliation inflicted by aluminum and plastic instruments of architectural torture. Americans prefer to put old buildings out of their misery quickly. One day they are old and a bit derelict and the next they are gone. Poof!

The advantage of this approach, compared to the one I noticed in Southwestern Ontario, is that if the building should be appreciated again, breathing life back into the old bones is not all that difficult. Often all the old stuff is still in place and with a little spit and polish the old building takes on the look of a proud old building.

Take the little town of Clayton, New Mexico, on the historic Santa Fe Trail. Clayton has gone through some rough times, like so many little western towns.

First, few folk live there. Ten years ago it only had a total population of about 2500. This can make things tough right from the get-go. The per capita income was under $14,000 with the median household income only $25,600. The town was once a livestock shipping center for herds from the Pecos River and the Texas Panhandle but that too is in the past.

Yet, I talked to some residents and they liked living in Clayton. The little town holds a parade each Independence Day and hosts two museums. And one, The Herzstein Memorial Museum, run by the Union County Historical Society, is open without charge Tuesdays through Saturdays, according to Wikipedia.

Today Clayton is marketing its look; Its age. Its community pride. Some of the businesses, like the old Eklund Hotel, pre-date 1900 but many others are much younger. Visiting Clayton is like visiting the States that I knew in the '60s and the '70s. The States that I loved in my youth.

I think of Carbondale, Colorado, and sitting on a stool at the long soda fountain counter in the town drugstore and sipping iced Green River soda. I recall watching My Fair Lady in the old movie theatre in Glenwood Springs and later enjoying a 3.2 beer with my date.

I'm going to revisit Clayton, N.M., this summer. Spend a few days there if I can arrange it. My Morgan will be quite comfortable there. And maybe I'll be able to buy Judy, my wife, a Green River soda.

You can still see a film at the Luna Theatre when you visit Clayton. Opened in 1916 as the Mission Theatre, with just under 400 seats, it once had a grand ballroom in the basement, later a roller rink, now also long-gone. The Luna won the New Mexico Heritage Preservation Award in 2001. Credit: Rockinon, May 2005

The little English roadsters shown in these pictures are all Morgans on the Morgans Over America 2005 tour. Morgans are still being made, making Morgan the oldest automobile manufacturer in the world. The little company is now in its second century of operation.

Sure glad GM didn't buy them like they did Saab. --- Cheers, Rockinon .

It was a green car!

It's November and it's cold in Canada. Oh, it will get colder but let's not quibble; it's cold.

I don't drive my Morgan too often in the winter but I do drive it. I'm not very mechanical. Pulling plugs and filling cylinders with oil seems harder than just driving the old car for 45 minutes every four weeks.

If you don't run an engine regularly, the cylinders can rust. I know this is true but we don't want to go there . . . well, maybe we do. That incident, as embarrassing as it was, is at the core of this post.

You see, my Morgan was vandalized years ago. And to make a long story short, I was forced to store the car for years. Finally, I found someone to fix the car. I loaded it on a flat bed and had it trucked to Bolton, Ontario.

When the mechanic pulled the head, he discovered the pistons were rusted to the cylinders. "Didn't you put oil in the cylinders," he asked. "Of course," I replied. "I did that before putting it into storage."

"That was years ago! Heavens, man! Haven't you heard of gravity? Over time the oil seeps down to the bottom of the engine leaving the cylinder metal exposed." He then took a power chisel and broke up the pistons and chipped the cylinder sleeves from the engine.

Lot's of other stuff was equally damaged from doing nothing. I began to think my old car was a lot like a person. If you want rusty arteries, just sit and do nothing. Do nothing and it will come, meaning deterioration.

It took my mechanic three years of off-again-on-again work to put my Morgan back on the road. When I had some cash, the work was on. When I didn't, the work was off. There were a lot of offs.

But, in the end, it was fixed. My wife and I drove it to San Francisco in 2005 for the Morgans Over America tour. We saw the Grand Canyon. We spent a night in Hannibal, Missouri, made famous by Mark Twain. We took the Chi-Cheemaun car ferry from the largest, freshwater island in the world to Tobermory at the tip of the scenic Bruce in Ontario. And when we got to Toronto the car died. It needed a new cam shaft.

You know what's coming: I loaded it on a flat bed and had it trucked to Bolton.

Fixed again, my wife and I drove it to Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston, Niagara Falls, Detroit — they loved it in Detroit — hey, it is Motown. 

And then the other day, out for a late fall run, gotta keep that rust at bay, I felt my heel slip. I thought there was a lose piece of paper, or maybe a leaf, under my foot. I reached down and felt something warm, like blood, but slippery. I looked at my fingers. Oil! My engine's life blood! A quick glance at the oil gauge confirmed that I had no pressure. Zero. I immediately shut the engine off.

I just got off the phone to the mechanic. He says that I have horseshoes where the sun don't shine, or something to that effect. The engine is fine. A hose carrying oil to the one-shot lubrication system (don't ask) broke. I shut the engine down in time. No damage.

So, what's the point of all of this? Why is this blog titled "It was a green car?" If you're thinking it's because of all the money, the green, that the little car has devoured, you're wrong.

Here's the scoop — the Environmental Rating for Vehicles (ERV) has been calculated for the Morgan roadster by Cardiff University and a new Morgan 4/4 rates almost 7 per cent higher than a Toyota Prius Hybrid!

If I asked you to name a car that was designed and built around the principle of weight reduction, you might not think of a sports car but you should have. My Morgan doesn't tip the scales at even 2000 lbs., and yet it can mosey down highway 401 and hold its own against the turbulence caused by even the largest trucks. Size does matter and small is better. And what you do with that small size is important, too.

According to the Cardiff University report, "despite the traditional styling of Morgan cars, they can out-compete most . . . modern competitors in terms of environmental performance." And, as I said, they're no slouches on the highway either. (Ah, but twisty, narrow, back country roads, like those snaking up and down the Niagara escarpment, on those roads from hell Morgans find heaven.)

So, how does a car earn a good ERV rating?

- low weight
- good use of materials
- low emissions
- durability
- a green manufacturing system
- a forward looking approach

Many new Morgans tip the scales at only 50 kg more than The Smart Car. Morgans use lots of steel, sometimes aluminum, and even wood in their construction — think recyclables. New Morgans use state-of-the-art engines from manufacturers like BMW.

Now, your might think that durability was the weak spot in the Morgan green armour. If you did, you're wrong. Morgans are durable. I bought mine in December of 1968 and yet among Morgan owners, I'm a bit of a newbie. One fellow, I know, bought his Morgan in 1956! The factory encourages this by supplying parts  for up to 50 years after a car was produced. And don't discount the emotional attachment owners have for their Morgans; Morgan owners are as durable as their cars — although I, personally,  have never needed a flatbed. I have needed an ambulance, though.

Around 60 -70 million cars are produced every year with the numbers climbing constantly. This is clearly unsustainable. If car making is to survive, all manufacturers will have to move towards to a business model closer to that of Morgan and other low volume producers than that of General Motors. (Hey, Morgan has been in business for a hundred years and, unlike GM, is still standing on its own two feet — uh, four, four wheels.)

Lastly, if you believe a car company famous for deviating little from a 1930s design is hardly a forward thinking company then you're wrong again. Morgan has announced the LIFECar, designed to prove a car can be lean, green and still fun, is going into production. And then there is the all electric Morgan based on the original three-wheel Morgan design with roots going back to the early years of the last century.

Finally, why do I say my Morgan "was" green in the past tense? Internal combustion engines have come a long way since 1968. By today's standards my 4-cylinder was a polluter. I'm afraid its days of making claims to being green have passed.