MORGANS. You either get them, or you don't.Why, when you can get your sports car thrills from a poised Porsche Boxster or BMW Z4, would you want a car crafted from wood by chaps in the Malvern Hills, topped off with a Thirties throwback body and lashings of chrome? Well, I would for starters.
I was lucky enough to drive one last year, and I loved the utterly alive steering feel, the grunt of the exahust note and the evocative view down the bonnet, and it seems, given the length of the firm's waiting list, that so do lots of you. But to condemn the century-old carmaker as a company which just forgot to take its older models out of production is to dismiss what I reckon could be one of next year's most exciting driving experiences.
As much as I love the evocative idea of Morgan's factory being a glorified garden shed full of plucky British craftsmen nailing old cars together over a cup of tea amid a mist of timbery smells, I know the reality's a lot more space-age than that.
They've not only developed the LifeCar, which blends state of the art aerodynamics with trendy hybrid technology, but also equip their more expensive models not with any old engines, but sophisticated BMW Motorsport powerhouses designed by white-coated scientists in Germany.
But it's their decision to take their oldest design of all - the three-wheeler from the Twenties - and put it back into production that I'm most looking forward to, because when it does go on sale next year it will be the world's wackiest take on making smaller, greener cars.
The aptly named Morgan Threewheeler will weigh half a ton and will keep Greenpeace happy because it has a 1.8 litre motorbike engine, but more importantly it'll look and drive unlike any other car on the market. It's a car that looks like a cross between a Sopwith Camel and a vintage Grand Prix racer, minus a back wheel.
Stirling Moss, who owned one of the originals, said his was “a great babe magnet”. I rest my case.
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