The Pub

Geoffrey
congrats on a great find, I spent 13 years restoring our Super Sports 5381 as it had been wrecked and thrown in a yard for 25 years, the factory helped in all aspects back in the 90s including Charles Morgan, Mark Aston and ironically the man who built the wooden frame as an apprentice redid it for me the savable panels etc.
you want to get all the history you can on the car and let us know your number stamped on top of the wooden arches and on inside of the bonnet hinge at front
People to know are Hermon Pol, and there is a Super Sports Morgan facebook page as well
Doc Bowie up to Maine

I enjoy helping owners achieve whatever they want with their Morgans. What they want is their choice. They Tarzan me Jane.

For my own Morgans, I have merely one cardinal rule, I will not modify the car by doing anything I cannot reverse, myself, in my own garage, in a day. I
am not an originalist per se but one must set limits or go mad and ruin the car. Any car can be made into a sad hot rod and lose the inherent
character one bought it for. Of course, experience broadened the playing field I set. I can replace any engine with one of my others in a day.

Like Duncan I am a driver. A rare type for our community as I am a long-distance driver...our average trip is many weeks and 5000 miles, two times
a year for many (25) years. Ergo, in my case, I would take your car apart to any degree necessary and rebuild it while reversing and prevent forever
more any age deterioration. I would upgrade components in the process as well, so you can rely on them. The reason the Plus 4 SS is so famous, is that
they are blast to drive if they are great driving condition, regardless of how they may have been made to sparkle.

That being said, I do, secondarily, keep my cars as best I can at a Concours level, an impossibility with a driver. Gives me something to do but I have learned
to avoid Concours competition. One cannot drive 1500 miles on back roads, and then prepare one's Morgan through the night with a toothbrush cue tips for
the Concours event the next morning. Not interested and I prefer to have a few with moggers. Driving is my priority. To avoid Concours, I accepted a role as
Concours Chairman and passed a rule the Chairman cannot enter his/her car.

The late John Sheally II, a racer and driver, as well as a Concours competitor, confided he sold his beloved Plus 4 SS when he discovered that he was reluctant
to drive it after his amazing world famous restoration! He did not like that. I understand him completely.

gmg

P.S. You will find working on a Morgan much easier than your experiences with other British cars.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2024-10-21 03:17 PM by GoMoG.

Today I responded to my friend Paul's request to come hang out with Rich and Jean Taylor's band of long-distance tourers (www.vintagerallies.com) as they stopped to view his car collection and watch him demonstrate how to make a compound curve in a flat sheet of steel for one of the car bodies he creates from scratch. Rich and Jean organize similar 5-day, 1000-mile trips for charity every year and I'd read about them in the vintage racing magazine, Victory Lane, in past years. The 40+ cars ranged from the 1950s to present and included Ferrari, Lotus, Corvette, Jaguar, Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Mercedes Benz, Bentley, BMW and Ford GT.

It was good to see these antiques and classics getting out for some serious exercise as the owners toured through the fall foliage in rural Virginia.

Duncan