Malvern, Worcestershire, UKMorgan Motor Company is a British automobile manufacturer. The company was founded in 1909 by H.F.S. Morgan and was run by him until 1959. Peter Morgan, son of H.F.S., ran the company until his death in 2003.
The factory is located in Malvern Link (an area of Malvern in Worcestershire) and has 155 employees. All the cars are assembled by hand. The waiting list for a car can be up to a year. Production is nine cars a week and each car takes three months to build.
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; aluminium 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.
When the Rover Group discontinued production of their V-8 engine, Morgan replaced the +8 with the Roadster. Introduced in 2004, the Roadster was powered by a Ford 3.0L V6.
In spite of their traditional design, Morgans have always had sporting or 'sports car' performance, due to their very low weight. This is especially true of their V-8 powered models, the +8 and the Aero 8.
Among their enthusiasts, Morgans are affectionately known as Moggies. Their owners tend to be very traditional in their approach to sports cars; the failure of the +4+ is generally used as an example of this.
In October 2006 Morgan announced it would produce a fuel cell based sports car called the LIFEcar and based on the Aero 8 as an experiment. It is being built in collaboration with the UK Department for Trade and Industry (DTI), fuel cell maker QinetiQ, BOC, and OScar, and educational institutions. Morgan will present the car in 2-3 years time.
