Well, here we are nearly in the middle of January already. A Good New Year to you! Our first meeting of the year on the 7th January was a members coffee morning, which apart from giving members time to have a good old blether, is an opportunity to find out more about members who are prepared to speak for 10 or 15 minutes. This time Ray Young spoke about getting a DNA test done – more information to come in a separate post.
Phil Theaker spoke about the 10 years or so he owned a Morgan 4/4 4-seater. It looked pretty much like this one (1973, for sale in 2024).
I first saw a photo of a Morgan in a magazine when I was about 16/17 (1965) – I just fell in love with the shape. However, my early motoring was in an Austin Mini 850, then a Mini 1000.
Early 1974, when living in north London, there was a Morgan 4/4 advertised in a local garage – how exciting. However, we were in the process of buying a maisonette at the time so it was not a really sensible idea. Even though there was no hope of buying it, we went and test drove it – just amazing. Then we realised that as we were planning to have children, it was totally impractical. I had no idea how we would have financed it anyway.
Nothing happened until 1988, apart from spotting them out on the road and collecting a few pictures. It was my 40th birthday and we had just moved house. My birthday treat was a trip into London on the bus; my wife got the tickets so I wouldn’t know that we weren’t coming back the same way. We ended up at South Kensington, ‘Ah, we’re going to a museum!’ But no, we set off in the opposite direction, down narrow streets of terraced houses. Where on earth were we going? I began to think of all sorts of possibilities ….. some not very noble!
Suddenly we arrived at a garage with Morgans in the window; I stopped to look; my wife said ‘Shall we go in?’ I said: ‘But we can’t just go in.’ feeling quite uncomfortable about it. Helen said: “You go into other shops just to have look.’ So, after a bit of persuading, we went in. “I’ve come to pick up the Morgan,’ she announced. I picked her up and swung her round. She had booked it for the weekend without me knowing a thing about it.
It was a typical two-seater, and we set off home to Reading – lorry wheels seem very big when you’re only 18 inches or so off the ground, but having returned home we managed to get the girls in the back and off we went, visiting friends and family. I grounded it in church carpark – mutter, mutter from other people trying to park, then next day I went too early to drop my daughter off at school. Then I took it back to London. It had been a brilliant weekend, including my birthday party, so guests very impressed. My daughter, aged 10 had some recollections of it – she now understood the meaning of the word ‘exhilarating’ and she remembered a guy so intent in looking at the car while he was walking, he walked slap into a lamp post!
1998 – another 10 years has passed. Wendy had a friend at Uni whose Dad had a Morgan, he passed on an advert , asking ‘Is he going to buy one or not?’ The car was in Aberfeldy. Have you ever been to buy something and you just know you are going to buy it? This was it. We picked it up a few days later.
The real deal!
It was a yellow 1970 Morgan 4/4 4-seater. Ford 1600cc cross flow engine, no power steering, fly off handbrake, wooden body frame – ash. The running gear tended to be Ford, but not the front suspension – a Morgan special that you needed to lubricate every 500 miles with an oilcan. Getting spares was tricky, but fine when you knew the right places.
So, where did we take it? From Edinburgh we journeyed to Barnet to let my parents and one of my Uncles see it, we stayed in York, but where do you park it overnight? Off the street if possible is the answer.
A trip to the Outer Hebrides – I picked up my brother-in-law in Fife, then drove to Tore, on A9 just north of Inverness. We drove up to the B&B, I pulled on the handbrake and the cable went. So, no handbrake for the rest of the holiday. Next day we drove to Ullapool where we stayed the night, then caught the ferry the next morning to Stornoway, having to leave the car in gear as no handbrake – interesting! We worked our way south through Lewis, Harris, Berneray, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, Eriskay – lots of ferry crossings with no hand brake, and finally to Barra (Mrs McNeil, at our B&B demanded a burl in it). We were away for 10 days, yet only had the hood up one evening – amazing Hebridean weather! We met a German guy with a modern Morgan on Barra, and having looked at my car he announced he would sell his when he got home and buy an old one. You couldn’t tinker with his – like all modern cars.
Returning home, I had to replace the handbrake cable – buy it from Morgan, custom made, then get a friend to help. It wasn’t difficult, just time consuming. Next MOT, garage didn’t understand a fly-off hand, so they managed to damage it, so we had to redo it!
Hill climbing near Harthill on the M8. A steepish hill with many tight bends, quickest to the top wins. Also, manoeuvrability tests. Great fun. I took the son of friend with me (He’s now a traffic cop). When I got home there was oil and water dripping out from the wrong places. I’d blown the engine.
‘Don’t get it fixed in Scotland’ was the advice. Went to I & J Macdonald, in Lanchester, near Durham. Can you give me a quote? Well, it depends what we find ….. We agreed to the open-ended estimate and I trailed it down there. Eventually it was a complete engine rebuild – they were genuine motor engineers. It ended up as 1650cc, 115bhp @ 7000 rpm in a car weighing 15cwt. Cost? £5k. It was brilliant!
Our younger daughter wanted to drive it, but 25 was minimum age for the insurance. She did drive it a few times, but we sold it when she was 26 and she moved abroad anyway.
We noticed at Morgan events, that our car looked pretty tatty, signs of rust etc. Again, ‘don’t get it fixed in Scotland’ was the advice. So, I sent pictures of all the rusty bits to a Morgan garage in Preston – more bad news: it had originally been British Racing Green, then hand painted yellow. It would need completely stripping back, fixed and then repainted properly. Cost? Another £5k or so. I also knew there were door fixtures etc that would need replacing, no point in only doing a part job is the motto of any classic car owner. So probably another £3k, as some parts would be made by Morgan to order. Oh dear, what should we do?
Although we really enjoyed driving it, it did have limitations, and the Scottish weather is not the most conducive to open top motoring and we also had a caravan. So, we reluctantly decided it would have to go. The last photo we have of it is me driving up the ramp onto a trailer. Who did we sell it to? The guy in Preston, who fully restored it and sold it to a guy in the south of England.
Regrets? That I’ve never hired one since, I still get goose bumps whenever I see one.
What’s the fun of owning one? Driving it, flicking the back-end round corners on B-roads, tinkering with it, you could do everything really.
It was 1930’s motoring – leather seats, a large steering wheel, you peered out through a small windscreen, over a long yellow bonnet.
Lessons – on a trip to Mallaig, we lost coolant due to a loose hose, so had to refill from a burn – take a tool kit at all times. You don’t get wet when doing over 30 mph when it’s raining – but you do when you stop!
My final memorable day out was to the Grampian Motor Museum Alford. They have a road circuit, something like a 400 yds oval track with sharp bends at each end. At their track day each year volunteers take their classic cars and take visitors round the track a few times. Morgan Owners, Scotland always took part, with a 4/4 4-seater and I was asked to go one year. I’m really not sure whether that still happens, it was nearly 25 years ago. It was a beautiful day and great fun. The drive there and back was great as well: Blairgowrie – Glen Shee – Braemar – Alford and then the return afterwards. I did not know at the time that it was my last significant day out.
Would I have another one? Like a shot!
Why not join us at our next meeting?
New members are always welcomed at the Club. If you are 50 or over, retired, or nearing retirement, (men only, I’m afraid, sorry ladies) you can attend three meetings as a guest and find out what a relaxed and friendly time we have. That’s plenty of time to decide whether to become a Club member or not. Please check out our programme and email info@largsprobus.org.uk if you wish to attend as a guest, or to enquire about joining.
Largs Probus Club will next meet in the Willowbank Hotel on Wednesday 21st January at 10am when Alex McKinnon will give a talk on Why is the Sky Black?