THE QUINTESSENTIAL MORGAN — THE PLUS 8
Ahealthy V8 burble announces the arrival of something a bit special, but it’s still a surprise that the car generating that purposeful noise is so classically beautiful. We know our appointment at the park is with a Morgan, but, when the roadster appears in the metal, it is still treat for the eye. Traditionally, British cars with swooping mudguards are tall and narrow; the Plus 8 is wide and low, both elegant and powerful. Arriving with that throaty growl, this car has it both ways. It is serious fun.
“It will tool along delivering endless torque, but, when you open it up, it just leaps forward,” says owner Peter Emson. “It was certainly a performance car in its day.”
Peter bought this Plus 8 from New Zealand Morgan guru Derek Atkinson almost three years ago, and it shows Derek’s understanding of the marque. He tweaked the engine and designed the exhausts, with pipes exiting both sides in front of the rear wheels. Derek knew just the sound he was going for. It’s not loud, but UK home-market cars are required to be more discreet.
Derek also mixed the colour, which accentuates the flowing aluminium bodywork, and his paintwork is flawless.
Although it’s a 1982 car, Peter says it feels new and tight in a way that he didn’t expect. Mechanically, it has been reliable and, contrary to popular assumptions about British cars, it doesn’t leak oil. It sat unused for several years before Derek brought it back to life, so Peter wasn’t entirely surprised when the original fuel tank started to weep. He decided to have a new one made.
A rumbling V8 echoes around the Malvern Hills
Peter’s Morgan is not exactly a daily-driver, but he uses it at least once a fortnight.
The 3.5-litre V8 sits behind a small curved grille, so Peter says that it pays to keep an eye on the temperature gauge. He’ll flick on the fan override switch if the temperature creeps up, but, in the breeze of the open road, it will happily look after itself.
Before the Plus 8, Morgans used Triumph TR4 engines, but, as these were going out of production and the six-cylinder planned for the TR5 would not fit, Morgan needed a new power plant for its cars.
Around this time, in the mid ’60s, Rover had tentatively suggested taking over Morgan. That offer was turned down, but Peter Morgan had another idea. Rover agreed to supply its aluminium V8 to Morgan. It was compact and much more powerful than the Triumph motor for little extra weight. It was an exciting prospect, but the whole deal nearly fell through when Rover was folded into British Leyland.
Peter Morgan invited a couple of Rover bosses to be among the first to unleash the rumbling V8 among the Malvern Hills, driving his prototype Plus 8. The deal was back on.
The body was widened two inches, the engine was mated to the Moss gearbox used in Jaguars of that era, the brakes were uprated, and the car was launched to great acclaim in 1968. No doubt with racing in mind, 1969 saw the body offered in all aluminium for the first time, and the most successful of all Morgans, the Plus 8, began its long reign.
A leather suitcase the perfect companion
Not long after Peter Emson bought his Plus 8, he spied a sturdy leather suitcase, complete with leather hinges, among stuff that his father-inlaw was clearing out. They agreed that it was the perfect companion for the Morgan’s spare-
wheel-mounted chrome luggage rack.
Having solved the car’s chronic lack of storage, Peter and his wife Wendy have done several tours to visit family in Whakatane, and to East Cape, Taupo, Ruakaka, and Central Otago. Even with the hood down, everything but heavy rain blows straight over as long as you have the side curtains fitted, which the pair do on their trips. There is just enough space behind the seats for a full cover, which keeps any overnight rain out.
“You do keep one eye on the rain radar,” Peter says.
He says that the ride on a long trip is rewarding, and the supportive seats are comfortable right up to 400–450km, although rough patches of tarmac stick in the memory. Smooth roads are much, much better. The suspension bottomed three times on a trip to Whakatane, he says.
Peter has also blasted the car around Hampton Downs’ Club Circuit — second and third gear worked fine the whole way round. He let another keen driver in the family loose in it too, and he battled a Mitsubishi Evo X driver around the circuit, only seconds slower.
Unlike the case with most cars, sitting in the Morgan gives you a view as dramatic as it looks from the outside. The tapered and fluted bonnet stretches a long way forward, flanked by wings with bullet-shaped sidelights, like twin gunsights. You sit very low to the ground. You keep your hands inside — if you let one hang down outside the cutaway doors, you’d lose your fingernails to the tarmac. Start the engine, and the car literally shakes into life.
Sliding-pillar suspension — the latest thing
On the move, the car’s sliding-pillar front suspension — the latest thing in 1909 — is obviously different. Modern cars squash bumps and some you can’t feel at all.
The Morgan’s front end bobs in a slightly disconcerting way that you quickly get used to, the suspension faithfully registering everything it encounters while still attenuating the more severe bumps — well, most of them. That and the gunsight view help enormously in placing the car easily and naturally in corners. The car feels alive.
As is the case with most classic car owners, early exposure left an indelible impression on Peter. He was working in an anodizing plant in Onehunga in the early ’70s and driving either a Ford 10 or an Austin A30 when a workmate turned up with a Morgan Plus 4. He blasted them up and down Neilson Street.
“This amazing English machine just blew me away,” says Peter.
Then, in 2015, a good friend, who has since passed away, bought a new Plus 4. It was the performance version of the standard 4/4 — ‘4/4’ because it had four cylinders and four wheels.
“It was a totally two-faced beast,” says Peter. “It was completely docile, but, when you got it out on the open road and gave it some herbs, it certainly performed. It really sang from 4000 to 7000rpm.”
The pair went out for drives from time to time, then took a tour in it down the East Coast, across to the South Island, and on to Cromwell.
Eventually, Peter’s friend succumbed to his illness and the car was sold, but, by then, Peter had his own Morgan, after his friend suggested having a look at Derek’s car.
Peter didn’t need much persuading. The Morgan Plus 8 is powerful affirmation of living life to the full.
Editor’s Note: As this magazine went to print, it was announced that the Morgan Motor Company had sold a majority stakeholding to Italian company Investindustrial.
THE CLASSIC ROADSTER IS THE SWEET SPOT IN THE MIDDLE OF MORGAN’S SMALL BUT INCREDIBLY DIVERSE RANGE, FROM THREEWHEELERS TO THE SUSTAINABLE LIFECAR CONCEPT. BEST OF ALL IS THE PLUS 8