"if the basic design was good enough in the Thirties, it's surely adequate today." And prior to that, our last Moggie road test was back in December 1969, so you can see that the long view is important. Why this thoroughly delightful car evaded our road test scrutiny for the entire decade of the Seventies is partly that very little new happened to the Morgan, partly simple economics and partly a good dose of Gummint. For a long time, Morgan has had waiting lists that would be the envy of any other automaker. And Pete Estes, Henry Ford and Lee Iacocca know what we're hinting at-you get to a point where there are just so many cars you care to make, and that's it. Complicate matters with piles of paper required to show the car is safe and sanitized, and you eventually come to think the U.S. market is more trouble than it's really worth. As did Morgan in the early Seventies.
Enter Bill Fink and his Isis Imports, Ltd, Inc, and U.S. Morgan aficionados had cause for rejoicing. Bill set out single-handedly to import and legalize the marque, and his offerings today, both 4- and 8-cylinder models, are absolutely charming blends of old and new. And when we say old, we're not simply talking about last year's chrome trim being carryover.
Let's start at the front end by noting that Morgan's sliding pillar independent suspension hasn't changed radically since the good H.F.S. Morgan set pen to drawing board in 1910. (Curiously enough, that's the year George V ascended the throne. See how much history we're learning?) In any case, the Morgan front suspension has steel tubes supporting two vertical pillars on which slide the hub/stub axle assemblies suspended by coil springs; disc brakes, hydraulic tube shocks and an optional de-cambering by Bill bring things more or less up to date. The rear suspension is a bit more modern, but then you've got to recall that the Morgan had only one wheel back there for the first 26 years. A live axle with Salisbury limited slip is suspended on semi-elliptic leaf springs and damped by lever-action shocks, those marvelous box-like contraptions whose sealing characteristics were always hinted at by the presence of little refill plugs.
These components attach to what is actually half the real suspending medium, a steel ladder frame of perhaps less than
state-of-the-art rigidity. The tires are the other half of the suspension; think of the springs as merely something to grease occasionally. An ash framework is assembled atop the ladder chassis, and this in turn is cloaked in steel panels (or, as is the case with our test car, several of optional aluminum alloy). Neat, effective and, as we noted as recently as 1969, if it was good enough for the Thirties, why not today? Well, in fact, the feds have stomped in since then, and Bill responds with some added structure to fit the required door anti-intrusion beams. There's a hoop of rollbar stock behind the dash to which the door hinges
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are attached ' another structure behind the cockpit on which the door latch posts reside, and Bill carves out a bit of ash door-frame to mount aluminum beams. Little of this shows, of course, but you can still see a painted edge of ash here and there, as is quite proper, after all.
Bill handles the fed's dodgem bumper regs cleverly, with hydraulic pistons taken from the Volkswagen Rabbit and attached to steel tubes backing up the stock Morgan bumpers. These and the relocated taillights look considerably less out of place than several factory botch-ups that come to mind.
Under the bonnet comes the real news since our last road test of a Morgan: The Isis/Jaguar Rover Triumph/nee Buick V-8 is now propane-fueled and turbocharged. The first is a standard feature of Bill's 25-per-year output; the turbo installation is a $2500 option for those desiring added kick to their nostalgia. The switch to liquid petroleum gas (propane or butane) makes particularly good sense for a couple of reasons. First, it allows a complete lack of emission controls and the attendant problems with certification, durability testing and the like, what with LPG running as clean as Joan Claybrook escaping a Detroit steam bath. As an added benefit, propane's 105 octane means the 9.4A compression ratio is perfectly compatible with the Rajay turbo's 6-psi boost. There's no need for water injection or other detonation protection, and Bill says he can tighten the screw to even more boost if you're really intent on excitement.
The conversion to LPG uses a 19.3-gal. tank located approximately where Morgan fits its ordinary fuel tank. However, Bill notes that regulations dictate a 20-percent air volume, so the tank's effective capacity is more like 15.4 gal. Also, with LPG refueling capacity being temperature-dependent, a visit to the filling pump (actually, it's a valve)may result in less than 15.4 gal. filling an empty tank. This activity is accompanied by considerable ceremony, starting with unlatching the rear-deck-mounted inlet and bleed valves, screwing in the filler nozzle, opening it and the bleed, then waiting until a piquant mist of propane from the
latter signals a fill. And it costs quite a bit less than a visit to the gasoline pump: By shopping around, we found propane at 77C/ gal. Now there's nostalgia, admittedly of the short-term variety.
By the way, our experience indicates that all propane or butane suppliers aren't necessarily able to refuel a car; this, because of motor-fuel licensing requirements. And there was one lad, probably fresh from viewing a Great War dirigible movie, who refused to refuel our test Moggie because thunderstorms were forecast.
The propane travels from the tank to a firewall-mounted
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