[SOFT MUSIC]
ALEX ROY: Among the hills of western England is a town
called Malvern.
In the town of Malvern is a road called Pickersleigh.
On Pickersleigh Road is a factory that I consider one of
the most important locations in the automotive world.
This is the home of Morgan Motorcars.
[SOFT MUSIC]
ALEX ROY: When you think about a car factory, you think about
enormous buildings, Detroit, machines, people standing by
watching the machines.
And a line of cars, Or what's called an assembly line.
Morgan is a little different.
This is the car company, as a kid, I dreamt
I might have someday.
I didn't dream of owning a factory with a bunch
of robots in it.
I dreamt of designing cars by hand, working among friends,
and having people come and hang out with us as we build
the cars, before handing them the keys.
That's what it's like to work here.
That's what it's like to come here.
And that's what it's like to buy one.
This is the kind of place which can no longer exist in
the United States--
a car company building almost everything themselves.
Morgan Motorcars really is the last real car company.
Independent, family owned, the oldest such company in the
world, I think.
Certainly the oldest such company in England.
Building cars out of wood and aluminum.
Morgan Motorcars was founded in 1909 by HFS Morgan--
which, based on my experience driving Morgans, means "Holy
[BEEP]ing [BEEP]
Morgan."
Whooo!
The first Morgan was a three wheeler, built in 1909, that
HFS and his wife took on hill climbs.
Think about what sports cars and racing is all about--
power to weight ratio.
You talk high power, low weight, we think
Colin Chapman Lotus?
No.
HFS Morgan invented the whole idea of building the lightest
possible car with the highest possible power.
This is how the Morgan legend was born.
It's not really about the styling, although
that's part of it.
It's about something built into every single Morgan--
maximum power, minimum weight.
I'd been here years ago, briefly, in 2004.
And in my mind, there were a bunch of barns and guys
chopping wood.
Coming back, knowing that much more about cars, I found a
very busy place.
There were cars everywhere, brand-new
Morgans being assembled.
Not by assembly line--
by hand.
A lot of guys who've been here their whole lives and a lot of
young fresh faces.
The barns of my memory probably never really existed.
But Morgan is a collection of single-story brick buildings
and blue barn doors, within which people are
cutting wood by hand.
Each Morgan is defined by its wood frame.
And in the woodshop, we watched a tour being guided
through and shown how the wood pieces are glued together,
vacuum-sealed, and, like a fine scotch, aged in order to
complete the bonding process.
In the Aeromax section, like in the woodshop, literally
skilled artisans--
and I'm not talking about guys who went to school and got a
degree in metallurgy.
I'm talking about people who were taught here to do this
precise thing and only this perfectly--
cut the individual pieces, measured them, and made
corrections by hand.
Ironically, Morgan today, Charles Morgan, third in the
generation of the Morgan family, has seemed to have
solved all of the things Italian car manufacturers
couldn't solve in the '50s, in the '60s,
probably through the '90s.
Everything here is hand-made and reliable.
Everything is made from parts cut, welded, chopped
on-site, and work.
And that's part of what makes Morgan so unique.
No other manufacturer operating on this level of
technology makes cars that actually work and last.
Although it appears anachronistic, when you get
deeper into the plant, you get to the paint shop and the
inspection facility.
And then you see that Morgan is very much a cutting-edge,
modern car company.
Morgans are known for their reliability.
They can be fixed almost anywhere in the world by
almost anyone, which makes them very unique.
Because not only do they look unbelievably great, they are
unbelievably reliable.
I literally walked into the office of Charles Morgan, the
president of the company, who wasn't there.
I asked for Matt Humphries, currently lead designer of
Morgan, who I met within five minutes.
A guy who just a few years ago sent in a design for what
would become the Morgan Aeromax, whom Charles Morgan
immediately hired.
It's wonderful to meet you, Matthew Humphries.
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: Great to meet you.
ALEX ROY: And you are the lead designer at Morgan Motorcars.
Is that correct?
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: Yeah.
I mean, it's only a small team here.
But basically it's myself, another guy called Jon Wells.
He's a senior designer.
ALEX ROY: The big question is, we get a lot of people asking
us how to break into the automotive world.
And I remember coming here briefly, and being brought to
what appeared to be a shed.
And Charles Morgan showing me, I believe, a wood
carving of a car.
And he said, don't tell anyone that you've seen this.
And you were walking by.
And he mentioned your name.
And at the time, I didn't know who you were.
How did you come to become the lead designer?
What was that car?
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: My story is massively different than
anyone else's.
I was really fortunate.
Charles basically saw my folio of work from Coventry
University, where I was studying car design.
ALEX ROY: Which you submitted to Morgan.
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: I sent some drawings in.
Basically, Charles said, I love your work.
Why don't you come and work with us, on
placement, for six months?
So I turned up here 2004, in March.
And just basically start sketching out ideas for a
coupe aero-based car.
ALEX ROY: How old were you at the time?
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: I was 20 at the time.
ALEX ROY: I imagine that was a big deal.
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: It was a big thing for me, to be able
to be brought into a place.
The other fortunate thing was to actually work with Charles
directly because it's a small family company here.
And it's great being able to literally sketch ideas out.
And then you sit with the boss, who then
goes, I like that one.
Why don't we do something more with that?
So that's exactly what happened.
Sketched some more ideas out.
I went back to Coventry.
Produced a really small quarter-scale clay model.
ALEX ROY: How long was it between the first time you
sketched what that car might look like, to that car rolling
under its own power?
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: It must've been--
June 2004 was the first sketch, and we completed the
car March 2005.
ALEX ROY: So how long is the development cycle at a
company-- say, Porsche.
Someone internally draws something,
and a car rolls out.
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: I'm sure the latest 911, for example.
That would have been probably a five-year program, from
sketch to actually having a production car
there, if not longer.
ALEX ROY: And that's for a car whose predecessor has already
set the tone for what's going to come out.
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: Yeah.
ALEX ROY: So a complete fresh design is
probably much longer.
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: It's probably a longer period as
well, yeah.
ALEX ROY: So in most people's minds, prior to five years
ago, there was a Morgan design language
which looks like that.
[LAUGHS]
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: Yeah.
ALEX ROY: The wings, the slanted tail, the headlights.
High power, low weight.
It's very obvious that from the Aero 8
forward, you have this.
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: Yeah.
ALEX ROY: So what are the elements of Morgan design
which are permanent elements?
The Porsche 911 shell will never change.
What about Morgan will stay?
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: You've got some classic--
in fact, this car's perfect to demonstrate, as well.
Because it's not just about the materials you use.
They're a big factor.
We're talking real materials-- wood, leather, aluminium.
Also, the way that they're put together, and what we pride
ourselves on, is if we use a piece of wood inside the car,
we don't just stick a piece of veneer on top of aluminium and
call it a piece of wood.
If it's there as that material, we need to use it
and design in the fact that that's how wood will work.
Wood is going to only be able to be formed in this fashion.
So that's how we design it.
So we're keeping it functional for materials.
Then proportions--
big thing with Morgan.
You've got to keep short overhang front, long bonnet,
raked screen, longer overhang to the rear.
And it's got to be small and feel lightweight.
It's got to have that kind of traditional British sports car
feel to it, actually.
Now, you can take some of the elements away
from different areas.
For example, three wheeler.
That is pared down to nothing.
But because it's got those DNA elements, it couldn't be
anything but a Morgan.
ALEX ROY: What is a three-wheeler?
It is a bathtub upside down, with a 16-inch tire in the
back and two motorcycle tires in the front, a 2-liter S&S
motor, 115 horsepower, 100 foot-pounds of torque.
And it weighs 1,000 pounds.
This is the new Morgan three-wheeler.
The original Morgan three-wheeler was the first
car HFS Morgan-- the founder of Morgan--
ever sold.
The three-wheeler was stopped manufactured in the '50s.
Today, Morgan is offering this car.
Why?
Because he wanted to make it possible for someone to own a
Morgan without spending $50,000, $60,000, $70,000.
The three-wheeler is going to be priced at almost half that.
How did it come to pass that the three-wheeler came back?
Because I've seen it in films.
I've said, super cool, want one.
But I couldn't buy one.
Whose idea was that?
MATTHEW HUMPHRIES: It was the directors, the
three of them together.
They loved the idea of bringing the product back.
One of the reasons we did it, actually, is because if you
think about the last five years, for example, at Morgan,
how we've gone from the perception of Morgan of just
that classic car.
Transport the Aero in, we've introduced the Aeromax, we've
introduced a whole new product range, which has helped to
take the company up into a new level.
If we'd launched a three-wheeler 10 years ago,
first, I don't think it would have hit.
It wouldn't have worked as well.
And actually, when we were doing the whole design process
for the three-wheeler, the idea was to capture a new,
excited young market, as well as our existing owners.
ALEX ROY: Charles Morgan is a really fascinating man.
I can't lie.
I really like him.
And I really respect him for taking a company whose brand
was considered so traditional--
if anything, so old--
and making it so, so fresh.
At least half the cars here are three-wheelers, the most
inexpensive model they've offered in a long time--
25,000 pounds, $40,000-ish.
But more interestingly is that, unlike Ferrari teaming
up with Prada, Morgan has decided to think outside the
box and create a new box for what makes Morgan Morgan.
The co-branding of the three-wheeler is with
Superdry, a very cool Japanese brand.
The Superdry three-wheeler is really cool.
The three-wheelers are customizable, but no matter
how you customize them, it's not like buying a Mini and
then finding another guy with a Mini who has the same
customized Mini.
The three-wheeler would be unique if it was painted matte
black with a black interior.
It's unique no matter what you do to it.
Because no one else has ever built anything like this, or
is building anything like this today.
This is not a trike.
This is a Morgan, which happens to have three wheels.
Live and Let Drive is still, at its heart, a car show.
Which is why I'm going to wear this, my homemade Morgan
driving suit, and take this Morgan three-wheeler on a hill
climb, just like HFS Morgan did back in 1909 in the
original Morgan three-wheeler.
Hopefully, it won't rain.
[GRUNTING]
Ah.
Oh God.
This is what it's all about.
Understanding history, and also understanding that I
brought two left-handed gloves.
So we're going to go sans gloves.
That's French for "no gloves."
You don't mind if I just scoot past?
Thanks so much.
I'm almost in tears, standing in the Morgan workshop.
In a world where car manufacturers strive for
ubiquity, Morgan strives for permanence.
This is not about building the most.
This is about building history.
You don't buy into the Morgan lifestyle.
The Morgan becomes part of your life.
People don't sell their Morgans.
People don't lease their Morgans.
They live with their Morgans.
I love it here.