MORGAN BITSA SEES THE LIGHT
At the 1933 Olympia Motor Show, Morgan announced the F4 – Ford engine, four-seater. In a change from the more familiar V-twin ʼbike engines, the new model had a Ford E93A unit housed in a pressed-steel frame.
Chassis F159 was registered with the Reading number RD 6324, in December 1934. It is thought to have been bought new by the uncle of the subsequent owner, Tony Chipp from Stourport. When Chipp passed away, his wife Angela contacted Dave Anscombe of the Morgan Three Wheeler Club to ask if he would write a report on the car for probate. “I had considerable difficulty entering the shed,” says Dave. “I found a stick in the hedge and beat my way in, stopping occasionally to remove the build-up of cobwebs!”
The F4 appears to have been altered quite considerably during its lifetime. Its previous homemade body was substituted by a crude twoseater style using a jerry can as a fuel tank, and its transmission and gearbox are missing, replaced by another homemade arrangement, using a Morris rear axle and a Ford 100E engine.
Chipp had joined the Three Wheeler Club in 1983 when he inherited the car and spent some time trying to make the odd transmission work, but ultimately he gave up and the F4 languished in his shed. “He did get the car going,” recalls his wife, Angela. “It made a hell of a racket, and smoke poured out the back. He never got it on the road, but I think he just liked to tinker with it.” Chipp had promised the F4 to his cousin, but he decided that the restoration was beyond his abilities and it has now been bought by a keen club member who has – with some difficulty – managed to extract it from the shed.