From the November 2003 issue of Car and Driver.
Before we delve into the new Morgan Aero 8 roadster, let’s get something, uh, prominent out of the way first. The nose. It’s a unique-looking snout with a deeply recessed grille and a pair of pontoon fenders that are capped with flush-mounted, offset headlights. To some, “unique” doesn’t do it justice-it’s been likened to a cross-eyed Pekinese, or a frog drawn by the Merry Pranksters.
However you see it, the Aero 8 is the first entirely new car the little company in England has introduced in 50 years. Its previous model, the Plus 8, appeared in 1968, and it was little more than a lengthened version of the Plus 4, which had its debut in 1950. Although the Plus 8 has been regularly updated, it has remained about as modern as a VW Beetle, but customers nonetheless endured six-month waiting lists and a $65,000 price to snag one of the 200 Plus 8s produced each year, of which maybe 50 trickled into the U.S.
If there were no crash or emissions regulations, Morgan probably would have continued on with the Plus 8 for eternity. But these regulations got tougher with each passing decade, and the grim reaper finally had his eyes firmly locked on the Plus 8.
Imagine the dilemma at Morgan’s Malvern Link headquarters: Precisely how do you make a new car without turning off the loyal cadre of customers who are attracted to the classic, creaky British roadster that is the Plus 8?
So you try designing a new, modern car that retains the old, classic look of the Morgan. The task fell to Charles Morgan, grandson of the company’s founder, H.M.S. Morgan. The chassis emerged from a Plus 8 race car that Charles had built in the mid-1990s. In 1995, Christopher Lawrence (“The Mad Monk of Malvern Link,” June 1999), a 61-year-old race engineer, vehicle designer, and fabricator, joined Morgan to help turn that chassis-and body-into the Aero 8.
In 2000, a completed Aero 8 made its debut at the Geneva auto show and soon after went on sale in Europe. Since then, the company has reportedly invested $1 million to certify the car for the U.S. Interestingly, the company’s chairman, Peter Morgan, was once quoted as saying the firm could “lose [the U.S. market] tomorrow and never notice.” Obviously, that statement is no longer operative, and Morgan would indeed be grateful for U.S. buyers, whose purchases could recoup the cost of developing the new car.
The first Aero 8s should arrive next spring at a price of about $95,000. We got an early drive and test courtesy of Morgan’s East Coast agent, Cantab Motors. The blue car you see here is the sixth Aero 8 built and served as a prototype and test mule. Although its interior and trim bits are crude and unfinished, mechanically, it’s the real deal.
Morgan has never built its own powertrains. The 4.4-liter V-8 and six-speed manual transmission are from BMW. Plucked from the 540i, the DOHC aluminum V-8 produces 282 horsepower at 5400 rpm and 324 pound-feet at 3600 rpm.
The engine is mounted well behind the front axle for good weight distribution, and from the appearance of the tightly fitted frame rails, it looks as though the car were designed around the motor. The frame is an interesting combination of rectangular aluminum tubes that are reinforced with bonded and riveted aluminum panels. The skin is also made from aluminum.
The Aero 8 is a small car. It’s only 6.5 inches longer than a Mazda Miata. Its wheelbase, however, is 10.4 inches longer, so the Morgan doesn’t have that little-roadster look to it. Say what you will about the nose, but the guy’s got the eye. The Aero is without a doubt a Morgan, and although it appears to have the aerodynamics of a barn door, the drag coefficient is a poor but not horrendous 0.39 (the slippery Corvette has a much better figure of 0.29).
We’ve seen other aluminum cars with only small weight savings, but the Aero 8 is decidedly a featherweight. With a full tank of fuel, it weighs only 2476 pounds, which is about 50 pounds more than the four-cylinder Miata and 700 pounds less than the 405-hp, $52,000 Corvette Z06 (not to mention about 1300 pounds less than the 540i sedan the engine was designed for).
The Z06 has the power-to-weight advantage (7.8 pounds per horsepower versus 8.8 for the Morgan) and is quicker, but not by much. The Morgan scampered to 60 mph in only 4.2 seconds and through the quarter in 12.7 seconds at 110 mph. The Vette can hit 60 in 4.0 seconds and does the quarter in 12.4 seconds at 116 mph.
There are plenty of high-dollar sports cars the Morgan can dust off, including the Porsche 911 and Mercedes-Benz SL500, and some-such as the $119,000 Porsche 911 Turbo-that would direct the Morgan to the weeds. But the main point is the Morgan can suck you into the seat in any gear. It’s a pleasure to row through the six-speed box, the shift lever is well placed, and the clutch takeup is smooth.
Like a Dodge Viper, which rockets forward regardless of the gear it’s in, the Aero is joyously responsive. Left in sixth gear, this Morgan needs 5.4 seconds to go from 30 to 50 mph and 5.7 seconds to leap from 50 to 70 mph. Those are extremely good times, better than the Corvette’s at 9.5 and 9.4 seconds, respectively.
Part of the credit goes to the low-geared rear end (3.08:1) and a sixth gear that isn’t as tall as the Vette’s, but the big reason is that the engine doesn’t have much mass to pull around. We did our testing at Summit Point Raceway in Summit Point, West Virginia, and after using the straightaway for our acceleration testing, we did some hot laps to see just how sporting this Englishman with the German heart is.
That’s where we learned that downshifting is not required to keep the Aero 8 cooking. The V-8, as we’ve reported before, is creamy smooth and redlines at only 6100 rpm. The engine feels underworked and effortlessly whips the car around. After a few laps we found it was just as quick to skip downshifts and let the flexible engine do its work.
The chassis felt extremely strong and is completely up to modern stiffness standards. Bumps or road irregularities did not send the steering column shaking, and the cowl stayed put. That stiffness lends an alacrity and precision to the performance that we had not expected.
We got on the track thinking we’d do five laps for the photographer and get a feeling for the car’s handling balance. But five grew to 10, then to 15, then 20. The Aero 8 rocked out there.
The word that kept coming to mind: modern. The Aero 8 suspension uses unequal-length control-arm geometry at all corners and imparts amazing trackside grip and confidence. The low-profile tires are mounted on trick center-bolt magnesium wheels.
It’s an interesting setup because there are no anti-roll bars, which most other sports cars in production today have. Perhaps it is Morgan’s desire to be different, but the suspension delivers fantastically lively handling and loads of grip (0.96 g). We never expected to feel so comfortable sliding the car through corners and probing the limits of adhesion on the unfamiliar track.
We shouldn’t forget how the brakes and steering contribute to the good vibes. The front brakes use 13.0-inch rotors and four-piston calipers; the rears have 12.0-inch rotors and two-piston calipers. These are big brakes that would be suitable for a much heavier car. On the lightweight Morgan, we didn’t experience any fade. Anti-lock control is not available, but the firm pedal offers excellent feedback and is easy to modulate. We measured 178 feet to stop from 70 mph. (The Corvette Z06, with anti-lock brakes, stops in 160 feet.)
The steering uses variable power assist that is a little lacking in the feedback department, but it has no slop and firms up nicely as cornering forces build. Production cars feature a tilting and telescoping steering column not on our prototype, which had a steering wheel that about rubbed against the top of our thighs and made getting in somewhat undignified. The pedals are offset to the left in a small footwell that doesn’t have enough room for a dead pedal. The brake and gas pedals are too far apart for easy heel-and-toe maneuvers. There was plenty of legroom, though, and even with the seat moved all the way rearward, the seatback was still reclined at a comfortable angle. It’s intimate inside, with only six or so inches separating the shoulders of pilot and co-pilot.
There’s solid wood trim at the base of the upright windshield that continues onto the tops of the tall doors. That handsome trim and the view over the long elegant hood impart a vintage feel that was completely at odds with the Aero’s strong, modern performance and sharp handling. We were recalibrating ourselves over the entire drive, trying to rectify that old-time look with the modern chassis dynamics.
That recalibration continued on public roads. Admittedly, in Virginia and West Virginia, we never encountered the kind of crater-laden surfaces that we love to hate here in Michigan, but the bumps we did hit were soaked up just fine.
We did not detect any harshness filtering through the chassis, and despite the lack of anti-roll bars, there wasn’t a lot of lean in the corners. The prototype exhaust pipes that drooped below the rear suspension on their way to the dual rear outlets hit the road a few times, but production models have a system with more clearance.
Heat from the exhaust was one of our biggest gripes. The catalytic converters reside underneath the fenders and at a point next to the doors. These fenders look like running boards but are about eight inches wide and won’t support any weight. They make for wide sills that you have to hurdle while getting in and out. You end up looking dorky as you maneuver awkwardly to get out without cooking your calves on the fenders.
The prototype only had the removable hardtop, so we didn’t experience the manual softtop. Reports we’ve read from British car magazines suggest it’s far from perfect and not weather tight.
A convertible top that must be raised and lowered by hand is tough to accept in a $95,000 car. Still, the Aero 8’s combination of vintage looks, excellent performance, and rarity–only 50 or so will make their way here in 2004–makes it undeniably cool. Which is good, because this new Morgan may not see any changes for another 50 years.
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Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
