VEES VARIOUS

Your article on the Matchless V-twin certainly brought memories of my youth flooding back. The same MX sidevalve engine was also fitted to Morgan three-wheelers which, as a water-cooled version, reached average speeds of 89mph at Brooklands Relay Grand Prix in July 1933. In road trim as a threespeeder, it could do almost 70mph too.

Around this time Matchless also developed the air-cooled ohv model MX2 and the watercooled ohv MX4 V-twin engines which, in improved form, replaced JAP as the engine powering all models from 1935. JAP had been the suppliers for many years but I understand that supply was the issue which led to the change. Of course cyclecars were starting to be replaced by bigger / heavier cars so Morgan also developed the 4/4 from 1937, although they continued to produce three- wheelers until 1952.

Mine was a 1935 Super Sports which was given a more streamlined body with the MX4 engine and a three-speed gearbox, which I rebuilt. But could not get it to run properly due to the sidevalve cam fitted. So in the end I let it go for less than £100! Are you still around BOK 619?

I also owned, at a different time, a Morgan F Super three-wheeler of 1938 vintage which I took all over the north of England. The bolts holding the phosphor bronze worm wheel kept shearing, which temporarily ended my travels on occasion.

Did the Morgan bug ever die in me? Not a hope, even with the stratospheric prices now in evidence. Fast forward to my retirement years and I have built a three-wheel Morgan replica; a Pembleton kit car with a Moto Guzzi T5 engine in an aluminium body. It’s similar in weight to a Gold Wing and provides just as much fun.

Alan Watkinson, member 11,957