Morgan styling rarely changes, and then only slightly. Unless one is a true Morgan fanatic, it would be difficult to look at almost any Plus 8 and know what decade, let along what year it was built in. Thirty years after the launch of the original Plus 8 in 1968, it still looked almost the same. Not only that, but all Plus 8s looked much like the Plus 4s of the 1950s and 1960s that they had replaced.
Yet Morgan have always had a firm grip on their market, and seem to know exactly what their customers want. Televised advice from management guru, John Harvey-Jones, that they should boost production and raise prices was ignored, and no-one complained. Production may have crawled up from 10 cars a week to about 11 cars a week, but there is still no rush at the factory at Malvern Link, a stuffed owl keeps birds out of the paint shop, and waiting lists are still measured in years.
Like the earlier Plus 4s and 4/4s, the Plus 8 was an evolutionary step on what Morgan had been doing so well for some time. Although the style, almost pre-war in concept and detail, was little changed, this time it covered a wider and longer chassis frame, and was the first Morgan to be powered by Rover’s light-alloy V8 engine.
Open two-seaters with detachable side screens, all Plus 8s used the same type of rather flexible frame, with sliding pillar independent front suspension, and rock-hard rear leaf springs. |
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The first cars, crude in many ways because of their old-style Moss gearboxes, had 155 bhp and a 120 mph top speed, but as the years passed they were widened, became available with optional light-alloy bodies, became more refined and better equipped, and (by Morgan standards) were more sophisticated.
Later cars got five-speed Rover transmissions and wider-rim alloy wheels, the cockpit was somehow softened and equipped better, but the real advance came in 1984 when a fuel-injected 190 bhp version of the Rover engine was fitted for the first time. This, and the standardisation of rack-and-pinion steering, made the Plus 8 an even more appealing car, though the barn-door aerodynamics of the old-fashioned shape meant that no Morgan was ever likely to go faster than 130 mph.
Little, however, could be done (and there is no sign that Morgan wanted to do it, anyway) about the limited wheel movement, the hard spring and damper settings, and the creaky bodywork which tended to leak in heavy rain, though more modern Morgans had been given wooden-framed bodies steeped in preservative. The customers knew all about the problems, but they knew all about the cars’ animal appeal too – and demand stayed solid. Perhaps it always will.
Styled much as previous models, the more powerful Plus 8 had a basic cramped interior with detachable side screens.
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