The Morgan Motor Company

The Guild of Motoring Writers presented Charles Morgan with the Presidents Trophy 

Charles thanked the Guild of Motoring Writers for this award and said a few words.

The Morgan Motor Company is now the last British owned car manufacturer. 

Perhaps this gives Morgan a duty to succeed. Manufacturing exports is one
potential way out of the problem of the UK’s deficit in the balance of its
payments. Currently manufacturing accounts for 11% of GDP and some
would say this should increase to 20%, 24% being the level of the German
economy.

Well how can Morgan make its contribution to the UK’s future success?
The answer is that the company can grow and build on existing success.

In 2010 Morgan has an innovative, novel way of building cars out of
lightweight materials and we have successful collaborations under contract in
place with Ford Motor Company, BMW, Siemens and Bosch as well as with
some innovative new companies in the UK.

At Morgan we have proven fast development cycles. For example to meet
ongoing cleaner emission legislation Morgan has to engineer a new
powertrain every two or three years.

Most importantly we have a young well qualified team combined with some
unique craft skills. The average age at the company is now 37 and our
engineers at the company are currently working towards a possible 5 PHD’s

This dynamic team at Morgan has made a commitment that from 2010
onwards a new model will appear every two years. The legendary sports car
company will target new niches….. electric sports cars, fun weekend cars and
cars for young families. This is a considerable revolution for a company that is
famous for making the same car for 50 years!

You may ask how can a small company like Morgan with 160 staff and a
turnover of £30 million afford the substantial development costs of bringing out
a brand new car every two years? Especially when the economic situation will be
tough and we all expect government grants will be cut in the light of the need to
balance the deficit. Well, we might get some help. The new coalition government
of the UK appears to support R&D tax credits. These help so much to make a
business case for spending on research and development.

Secondly Morgan will make full use of the UK Universities. Morgan will tap into their
expertise through the channel of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships. Morgan is currently
working with three universities, The University of Oxford, Cranfield and Birmingham City
Universities on an electric car project, LIFECar 2. The support of these world class
institutions helps Morgan tap into a huge knowledge bank and British Universities often
look further ahead than their German or Japanese cousins. Morgan can also provide
a business use for their academic research and invention.

There is no doubt about the difficulty of the task of bringing out new cars in a company
with such small resources. Of course the huge development departments of the car
companies of Germany and Japan are formidable rivals. China currently trains some
500,000 engineers a year. It is going to be tough. But the new projects at Morgan will
be driven by a passion for motoring and the motorcar and a small, dedicated team will
amplify their anticipated performance.  Furthermore Morgan can build on some of the
achievements of the last ten years. 

Some of these achievements are….
Morgan was the first car company to build a car with a bonded aluminium chassis,
using Alcan’s patented AIV system.
Morgan was the first car company in 1995 to see the benefit of superformed aluminium
in a production car to reduce weight (Bentley now make plentiful use of superformed
aluminium to reduce weight on the new 2010 Bentley Mulsanne)
The Morgan Motor Company currently manufactures the lightest sports car in the world
to meet both Euro 5 carbon
emission regulations as well as European Whole Vehicle safety approvals.

To justify Morgan’s pioneering use of new technology I would add that the development
of innovative ideas on low volume vehicles carries a lot less risk than on high volumes.

So in conclusion I would ask Morgan fans, suppliers and customers to support the team
at Morgan in the task to launch these exciting new models. The message I would like to
give is that Morgan Motor Company in 2010 is a go ahead, innovative and exciting company….  
as well as one lucky enough to have 100 years of continuous success behind it.

Charles Morgan

27 April 2010