The Morgan Motor Company is a British automobile manufacturer. The company was founded in 1910 by H.F.S. Morgan and was run by Peter Morgan, son of H.F.S., until his death in 2003. The early cars were two seaters and three wheeled cars. When they introduced a four wheel car it was called the "4/4", for four-cylinder engine and four wheels.
In spite of their traditional design they have modern sports car performance, due to their very low weight. The Morgan Plus 8, powered by a fuel injected 196 hp Rover V8, can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 5.6 seconds. For a few years in the 1980s Plus 8s were imported into the United States, converted to run on natural gas as fuel to pass the U.S. emissions regulations. Modern Morgans are legally imported into the United States once more.
In 2000 the Morgan Aero 8 was introduced and, as always, the wooden body substructure was ash. (Contrary to popular myth, however, the chassis is metal; aluminum for the Aero 8). The Aero 8, with a BMW V8 engine in a car half the weight of the BMW, is even faster than the Plus 8, delivering what Autoweek magazine termed supercar performance.
The factory is located in Malvern Link (an area of Malvern in Worcestershire) and has 130 employees. All the cars are assembled by hand. The waiting list can be up to a year. Production is nine cars a week and each car takes three months to build.
Movie stardom
Morgans have been seen in a number of movies and TV programs. A Morgan three wheeler is driven by Peter Sellers in the movie The Party, as somewhat of a badge of ridiculousness. A Morgan four wheeler was used throughout the Mel Brooks film Silent Movie. The Movie Speechless featured a 1957 Plus Four Four-Seater, and the movie Now and Forever, set in Australia, had a 4/4 1600 Four-Seater. Perhaps the biggest hit among movies featuring Morgans was The War of the Roses in which several cars were used to depict Mr. Rose's Plus Four roadster.