There are few sports cars as quintessentially English as Morgans. They speak of World War Two and flat-capped Spitfire pilots driving home to their sweethearts through leafy country lanes, taking the bends at maximum speed but courteously slowing down for horses and to wave at the vicar.
But now the 113-year-old firm, which has operated from Malvern Link in Worcestershire since day one, has produced a model designed to be as capable of taking-on a crossing of the Gobi desert as it is of negotiating the parish hall car park after a particularly nasty fall of autumn leaves.
It’s called the ‘Plus Four CX-T’ with the ‘CX’ standing for cross-country and the ‘T’ referring to the off-road ‘trials’ in which Morgan’s original, three-wheeled cyclecars proved so successful in the first half of the 20th century.
The old marque has come on a bit since those days, and the new Plus Four on which the CX-T is based boasts a state-of-the-art ‘CX-Generation’ platform made from bonded aluminium, at the front of which sits a two-litre BMW TwinPower Turbo engine tuned to produce a useful 255 horsepower – making the Plus Four good for a top speed of 149 mph.
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