The Sleek Morgan Supersport is the Company’s New Flagship Sportscar

It’s not every day that a new Morgan sports car is revealed, but it wasn’t too long ago when we showed you the gorgeous Midsummer. Morgan is a brand that likes to keep things traditional for the most part and, for well over a century, has been building cars the old-fashioned way: by hand! And while that is still the case for the most part of a Morgan car nowadays, the company has, to an extent, embraced modernity. The once-deemed archaic manufacturer has cautiously and gradually dipped its toes into modern car building techniques, yet taken a big leap with the latest flagship model: the Supersport! 

Let me make one thing clear from the get-go: this is still a Morgan as it should be! Built largely by hand, it has an aluminium body shaped over an ash-wood frame, a horseshoe-type grill up front, a long bonnet, a cockpit placed far back, and drive to the rear wheels. It’s a recipe for driving pleasure as old as the automobile itself – Morgan has been in business for well over a century. The fact that they stick to traditional methods where it matters is a large part of the brand’s appeal, but in some areas, Morgan wisely decided modernisation is needed.

The Morgan Heritage

Morgan’s lineage dates back to 1910 when Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan founded the eponymous company in Malvern, Worcestershire, which is in the UK. A year prior, H.F.S. Morgan designed and built his first car, which was intended for his own use but ended up being the stepping stone of the Morgan Motor Company we know today. The car was a single-seater with an air-cooled V-Twin engine, two front wheels and a single rear wheel.

By the outbreak of the First World War, H.F.S. Morgan had sold about 1,000 of his three-wheeled Runabout, and after the war, production was quickly fired up again. The first four-wheeled Morgan would be introduced in 1935, and it would be in production alongside the fabled three-wheelers for years. Although phased out in the early 1950s, the three-wheeled Morgan cars (Runabout, Aero, Supersport and so on) remained popular, to the point that the concept made a comeback in the early 2010s. Even today, it’s part of the catalogue as the Morgan Super 3.

Morgan’s unconventional approach to car manufacturing gives them a pretty unique position, where traditional production methods are part of the whole aura of the company. Every Morgan that leaves the workshop is characterised by a low weight, a strong engine, ash-wood frames, hand-beaten body panels and so on. Throughout each and every car, the Morgan DNA is on full display, thanks to (often) single headlights protruding from the front fenders and flanking a louvred grill, louvres in the engine covers, and a short, slanted overhang. Currently, the manufacturer offers three lines of highly configurable cars: the Super 3, the Plus Four, and now the Supersport.

Not your typical Morgan

The new Morgan Supersport serves as the replacement of the Plus Six, which was introduced in 2019 and, in turn, was the successor to the Plus 8. If you’re familiar with Morgan and its naming strategy, you will know that this lineage meant the flagship Morgan switched from 8-cylinder engines to 6-cylinder engines from the Plus 8 to the Plus Six.

With the new Supersport, Morgan is continuing its use of the BMW-sourced 3.0-litre twin-turbo straight-six, which is shoe-horned into the bonded aluminium chassis. The 335bhp the engine puts out is fed through an 8-speed automatic gearbox, also from BMW. That doesn’t exactly sound like it can take on the might of the current sports car class, but this car is not intended to deliver mindblowing acceleration and top speeds. Yet it’s no slouch either, as the car itself weighs only 1,170 kg and promises a zero-to-100kph time of 3.9 seconds and a top speed of close to 270kph (166mph). So, no barnstormer, but plenty fast to engulf yourself in pure… driving… joy!

But this is not your typical Morgan! Sure, it very much looks like a Morgan, and despite not having driven one myself, it sounds like it is a proper Morgan, too. However, it’s quite the leap forward for the company in terms of design and engineering approach. It starts with the exterior, which is shaped to optimize the aerodynamic flow from front to back. The aluminium body panels are formed by hand over wooden bucks and sit over an ash-wood frame for support. The combination of the soft curves and lines Morgan is known for against the straight and contemporary air intakes, vents and so on is quite striking but very appealing!

Gone are the traditional louvres in the bonnet, and in comes a vent close behind the signature grille to extract heat from the engine bay. The side profile is very much what we know and love from Morgan, while the back has been modernized as well, with a sloping and sharply cut-off rear section. Two exhaust pipes poke out underneath it, and there are modern LED lights all around. The Morgan Supersport is a true roadster, yet it comes with a foldable soft top as well as a carbon fibre hard top as standard. That means you can enjoy it in virtually any weather situation, although keep in mind the drive is to the rear wheels only.

On the inside, everything is finished in the finest leather, which is combined with handcrafted natural materials to ensure you enjoy the Supersport in comfort. It’s also fitted with wireless connectivity, a high-end Sennheiser sound system, wireless charging for your mobile devices, and so on. The instrument panel and centre console are finished with wooden and aluminium trim pieces, and the steering wheel is wrapped in leather.

As is typical to Morgan and coach-built cars like this Supersport, there will be plenty of personalization options on offer to make it truly your own. That also covers the suspension setup, of which there are multiple options to choose from. The base price is GBP 102,000, incl. VAT, which will likely be bumped up by most owners depending on the ticked-off boxes on the options list.

For more information, please visit Morgan-Motor.com.

Editorial Note: The information used and images portrayed are sourced from and used with permission of the Morgan Motor Company unless stated otherwise.