Speaker 1: In a world where cars can sometimes seem increasingly homogenous. The Morgan three Wheeler stands out as a beacon of Bon's alternative thinking. It's both bizarre and brilliant. And now there is a new one called the super three, but it has a car engine mounted in board instead of the old SNS V twin slung out the front with 118 brake horsepower and 110 [00:00:30] pounds foot of talk. It has a decent amount, more grunt, but its triangular footprint is also slightly larger under a digital instruments. There's not even any wood under the body wall. So with these modern updates, has it lost some of its quirkiness or is it just as much of a motoring Maverick as ever here to talk us around all the details is the company's ever aimable head of design John Wells. John, thank you so much for talking us around this. [00:01:00] I think last time we were chatting was on, on a Welsh hill side with the CXT. So this is slightly, slightly drier and kind of more congenial surroundings in some ways. Um, new three Wheeler, super three
Speaker 2: Super three,
Speaker 1: Quite different.
Speaker 2: It is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: For, I mean, sort of the same, but, but actually the more you look around it, it's really for different starting, I suppose, with the engine, but the monocot where did you start?
Speaker 2: To be honest, we started with the engine. Um, you, [00:01:30] you, you know, you hit the nail on the head. The first thing we did was set out to explore, um, the power train for this car, the right one, and that has completely informed the character of the vehicle. We first started looking at at motorcycle power trains that seemed like the obvious place to start. So we looked what was available, modern motorcycle engine typically has integrated gear boxes with that. You have challenges such as how do you splice in a reverse gear? How do you overcome the sequential gear box? And you know, there's a reeducation. How do you, how do you drive [00:02:00] a car there's sequential gear box, you know, on a, on a test drive. Um, and we soon realized that the engineering and development that so many compact in line, small three cylinder engines out there that maybe we should look towards the car engine, the car derived route as well.
Speaker 2: The last V twin was a, was a two liter engine. Um, this is a 1500, um, in line three cylinder produces about 180 and break horse power. Um, it's important to know it's naturally aspirated. There's no turbo. Um, and that's quite intentional. We wanted [00:02:30] a car with a sort of really linear power that you can play with. Um, and character was everything. The, the character of the last three Wheeler is so prevalent. It's so strong, the big firing V twin there's so much talk. You can almost drive in any gear year. Um, this is a slightly different proposition. This is more power it's higher revving. The
Speaker 1: Cylinders have hared in size, isn't it? And you've got sort of very bizarre. Isn't, you've gone down to more cylinders, but yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And, and it is a completely different character. You have that lovely three cylinder sound [00:03:00] that nice sort of induction warble, you know, it's like half a flat six. It sounds, it sounds great. Especially when it gets up in the ribs and it's got this rasp to it, the way we kind of liken it quite often is that, you know, if the last, um, three Wheeler was a, was a scrambler, you know, great for a blast around BI on a Sunday afternoon, this is more of an adventure bike. This is, you know, effortless power and much more dynamic compliance. And this is the car you really want to go and have an adventure with. Um, and that, like I say, has really informed the vehicle going forward. I'll, [00:03:30] I'll talk to you about some of the accessories and some of the extras, some of the, the wind screens and the interior environment. This is a car that is built to escape with, um, recognizing that's that's exactly how Morgan three Wheeler owners do use their cuts.
Speaker 1: Cause it's, that's one of the things that's always sort of pleased me enormously, but also slightly amazed me that these weren't just borders sort of, I suppose, curiosities to sit as part of a collection because they're unlike anything else, you know, people buy them to use them. Don't they that's,
Speaker 2: That's absolutely you're right. Um, [00:04:00] and it's amazing seeing just how people do use them. They have incredible adventures in them and they meet up with their friends and they go touring. And again, not like the motorcycle world, you know, these are, these are cars to be outdoors in, um, meet with your friends and have these epic touring adventures. Um, even the way we've decided to display these cars at launch, we've gone for some very, very cool, the full pallets that you, a complete expression of individuality. You don't drive this car to be understated. This is about embracing your eccentricity. We've then dressed some of them [00:04:30] very traditionally, you know, this is a Morgan, don't worry, you know, it's, it's made in pickers Lee road in the same red brick buildings and it's, you know, built alongside the plus four and the plus six, and we've really embrace some of the traditional details. These sort of honey tinted, um, lenses here, Brit racing greens, nice number boards on the side. And then the third set of specification options have been really focused at touring and adventure. Um, a lot of the same sort of flavors in our CXT a recent Overland project we did. Um, so we have luggage racks and taller wind screens [00:05:00] and even some of the apparel and clothes that we're we're offering.
Speaker 1: So this is now in boards. That's obviously changed the kind of the, the way the rest of the car is, is put together. And we've got a Morgan Morgan first in, in 7 million terms of we've got a mono cog.
Speaker 2: We have, we have got a mono cog and, and actually everything, even from the design engineering approach, as again, was a influenced by that engine. One of the, one of the merits of the current three Wheeler is that your eye is drawn to that engine. It almost dazzles you from the, [00:05:30] the rest of the vehicle structure, but, but here we, the vehicle structure that was required to hold and Mount that engine has become the aesthetic of the car. And we've ended up with this three part platform. The first part are these big allium castings on the front. So this isn't aesthetic decoration. These are solid cast allium blocks of, of material. And these are trying to do a lot of jobs for us. So primarily they are the engine Mount. So these are encapsulating that [00:06:00] engine and fundamentally we wanted all of that engine and the visual mass of the car to sit behind the center line of the front wheels.
Speaker 2: This is something that was very important to us. We, we wanted that weight behind the wheels. So this car was towed by its front wheels. Something Morgans have always done. As soon as we were to put the body and engine in front of the wheels, you get a very different aesthetic where it sat on its wheels and has less of a exciting engaging kind of look to it. So everything was positioned behind [00:06:30] those wheels, even to the point that the odd little bit of engine like this little pulley wheel that was sticking out the front, we had to put a cover on it. Um, I wanted a little painted spiral where it was spinning, but, um, we had to put a cover on it, but we even have that protruding cuz we were so adamant. We wanted the body to sit behind the wheels.
Speaker 1: Now you said that I'm sure owners won't take it off and paint the spirals on it at all. I'm sure that I really hope
Speaker 2: They, um, so, so yeah, first of all, holding the engine second, all holding all of the corner packages. So you can see all the wish bones, [00:07:00] the push pour rod suspension, all that mechanical interest, all of these lines and arms are all quite thin and that's for good reason cause they're allowing the air to pass through. Cuz the third function of these castings is to divert the air into the radiators. Cuz now we have to manage a cool system, which we didn't have before. So that's really, really informed the whole front of the car and we are really pleased with what we've ended up with. We've got this very mechanical, functional face that like the old car you can read the purpose of the, of the front end. Yeah, that's it, there's, there's something [00:07:30] to sort of understand and read with your eyes and, and uh, there's an honesty to it as well, which we, which is really important to us,
Speaker 1: Let's deal with the wheels neck because they are, they're very cool. They've gone up in size. So 20 inch wheels,
Speaker 2: We've enjoyed loads of micro triumphs and victories on this program that we are really proud of, but the wheels are definitely up there. Um, and the tires in particular. So we've taken the engine in board, we've increased our range of, um, our percentile range of ergonomic suitability. So you [00:08:00] can get taller, taller passengers in there. So you all fit in it. It's also sort of squarely aimed at the American market and the European market. So we've got a full range of, uh, adjustment there. Um, and like I say, it got engine and a cooling pack, but we've managed to do that without growing the car too much. We have grown a bit there a hundred mil and the old wheel, the 19 inch wheels that we had previously were just looking a little bit lost on there, proportionally compared to the whole car. And it sometimes just these little subtleties make a big difference. And uh, so we, we [00:08:30] managed to persuade, uh, Avon Cooper, Cooper, Avon to work with us and we've commissioned our own tire, um, which now sits in the front of this car. So we have a larger contact patch than before. And
Speaker 1: You can see straight away as soon as you walk up to it. Like that is, that's a much more serious tie. If, if, if you haven't seen a three Wheeler before you might think that's a crazy thing to say because it's, you know, they're still narrow little tired, but they're definitely much beefier than before.
Speaker 2: You know, something. The design team and myself are really pleased where we were able to, to work, to get [00:09:00] a, a big balloon tire wall and a really sort of vintage heritage tread pattern and make a very traditional looking tire. Um, Cooper Avon have even bought back the Speedmaster branding. So we've got this great heritage branding on the side. Um, and these are unique to us and moreover they're speed rated and performance rated to make a modern tire. You know, we did pull very briefly at the Fred of what is out there, you know, should we be looking at off the shelf car tires, a lot of modern EV vehicles have tall skinny tires, but as soon [00:09:30] as you got to that sort of wide car tire aspect, it just changed the whole language of the car. And um, for us, the front wheels are such a big feature of this vehicle. We needed to invest the time there
Speaker 1: And the design of the wheel. I mean, I'm going, there's a bit of, uh, I'm thinking slightly, I suppose it was it X, J two 20 or E one 10 perhaps sort of turbo found there's all sorts of things in there. W
Speaker 2: 1 24 there's loads of there's loads of sort of references to sort of historic wheels intra, um, much like a lot of this car, the, the look of these wheels has been influenced heavily [00:10:00] by the engineering constraints, um, and challenges that we've been presented with. Um, in this instance, I mentioned that we've really worked hard to get the ride and handling character correct for the amount of power and the style of vehicle. Um, and through early simulations at the outset program, the engineering team really quickly realized we want to put a lot of the geometry as far out board as possible, the brakes and the corner packages and where the operates sit, um, brilliant for riding handling, not so great for designers that typically [00:10:30] love nice steep dish wheels and negative offset to play with. So, um, we've actually got these wheels where a lot of the structure of the wheels really, really outboard and quite flat. Um, but to be honest, we've just embraced that we've looked at the aerodynamic effects on the wheels. We've got some negative sort of concave surfacing, which kind of reflects the, the side panels in the car a little bit as well. And, um, quite a unique looking wheel that seems to sort of cross that line between modern and, and heritage.
Speaker 1: I think it's cool. And then we've got the covers here.
Speaker 2: We call those [00:11:00] the Centurian mud guards. They've got a very Regal sounding name and that's because of the, the little extended neck at the back of them. Um, anyone who's driven a, a three Wheeler on a wet day through a big puddle, well, turning be quite familiar with that sort of a face paint that you end up with. Yeah, so that's quite a functional, but, um, we actually like the vertical line versus some of the other vertical lines around the car. We, we think they sort of blend in quite nicely. You'll see in the inside here, there's a Shaer that runs around that, that wheel arch. [00:11:30] And that is to allow us every single spare millimeter of turning circle that we can get from the front of the car. So, um, one of the things we want to improve on was the turning circle. Again, many, three Wheeler owners will know that you steer with a throttle in one of these cars and you can actually turn very much on the spot, but where you can not break traction and, you know, turn with the wheels.
Speaker 2: Um, there is a Shaer there, which really allows the wheel arch to get close. Even with that, um, we've got the vertical sides of the radiator, the [00:12:00] constraint of the turning circle and the car not wanting to get too wide to fit on things like car transporters, but also to get through some of the doorways in the factory that are built a hundred years ago. Um, and through that journey, we've got the radiator sitting out board of the castings and the engine and the wheels here. We ended up with this requirement to have its sort of very flat face on the side of the car. We couldn't put too much form in here. Um, and again, we kind of embraced that constraint and, and ran with it. And we've ended up with [00:12:30] what we call the side blades, cuz they sound really dramatic. Um, our ation team didn't like that. They thought it sounded too dangerous, but we are just gonna embrace that. Um, so we've got these side blades and again, these, these hopes do a lot of work for us. So primarily they're capturing the air that comes in the front, but then you can see on the top side and on the side here, they're all vented in such a way that they're drafting as much air as possible. They're a bit like sort of barge boards or intakes on a jet engine. They're doing a lot of aerodynamic [00:13:00] work for us
Speaker 1: And they they're quite interesting on the aesthetically cuz when you, if you walk up to the car from certain angles, you, you can't see them yeah. At all, they just sort of disappear. Yeah. And then other times you're sort of, you're saying, how earth did it, could I miss that? You it's really sort of very obvious kind of thing strap to the side of it and you can have these in different colors as well.
Speaker 2: That that's right. So exactly. We, we tried to embrace that a little bit further. We thought, well, we've got this very, very technical mechanical front end and then we've got this very smooth organic backend. It's almost like a, a car or two half it's quite intentionally. [00:13:30] So you've got the business end and then the sort of occupant end horse and car almost or pod race, you know, with the engines out in the front. And we, um, so we kind of thought let's, let's keep with that technical geometry on the side of the cars with these very geometrically, simple rectangles, um, which relate to the circular wheels and some of the triangular graphics and create a bit of a separation. And then we embrace them further with these little fixing clips you see around the car. These are featured not just on the side panels, [00:14:00] but everywhere else. And they allow people to interchange how they use the car. So we offer luggage racks that clip into place pans that we've developed with a, with a amazing British brand called Malay London. Um, we've done this really heavy duty wax canvas. Pania that clips on the side. You could
Speaker 1: Have a, with a cup holder
Speaker 2: With a cup holder actually. Yeah. It's
Speaker 1: A, an outboard cup holder growing
Speaker 2: The for Morgan. There's a cup holder on this car. That's the first time we've done that in a hundred years. Um, I mean you have to spend some money to get there. It's not the cheapest cup
Speaker 1: Holder, [00:14:30] like 700 pounds for a cup holder, but it's yeah, there we go. You know,
Speaker 2: But nonetheless we have, we have of a cupholder
Speaker 1: Um, spending a lot of money, you know, get a fourth wheel. So, you know, Hey, it's gonna, that's it,
Speaker 2: That's it. I mean, to be honest, we we've really looked at use cases. You know, how do, how do people use three wheelers? And with the outgoing three Wheeler, we we'd see them commonly come back to the factory or at events and shows and the way people have improvised solutions for touring. It's just amazing. People were lashing Bunge chords on places and makeshift luggage, racks and tour wind screens. [00:15:00] And what we've decided to do is just embrace that and design in these solutions from the outset. So those clips enable different wind screens. You can see some sort of low honey colored deflect air. You could have those in clear, you could have none, there's some tall ones that we do that you can have for, you know, really, really covered up drive in there. Um,
Speaker 1: Get rid of them entirely
Speaker 2: Or get rid of them entirely and just wear a pair of goggles. Um, I like these ones actually, when you're driving around the B roads, you can kind of look over them and, you know, hunt for the corners and then on a motorway, just duck [00:15:30] down and get the wind. Um, so yeah, it's, it's a, they've really given us a good opportunity, those, um, those universal victims around the car and
Speaker 1: Presumably some, a little bit of that must have come from CXT where we were lost talking about, because that was, I was saying to somebody the other day, how well designed or thought out that was sort of from BD, who was obviously from rally road, UK of all the little things that he'd clearly done and just went, well, you, you want this and that.
Speaker 2: And so, so at the time where, you know, we're, we're deep into the core of the develop of [00:16:00] this project as well. So, you know, we had these sat alongside the CXT in the, in the thing and there's, you know, there's no doubt they didn't influence each other. Um, and that, that was really a, yeah, that was really relevant. Actually, this, this particular in front of us is quite a traditional specification. Um, if, uh, anyone sees our launch film, they'll see that we've chosen to display this car with three different themes. They're not models. It's exactly the same car. That car there is the contemporary theme. So we've got this very bright coral colored exterior with a matching [00:16:30] interior and that kind of grabs your a shouldn't turns your head and you, hopefully people go what, wow, that that's exciting. And then very quickly or reassured with the Bri racing green and the rounds and the more traditional aesthetics, um, and the third car, which we haven't got here today is a bit of a take on the CXT it's in a desert sand color with lots of black laser cut, luggage, accessories, and fittings.
Speaker 2: And that car's real, really designed to accentuate the touring element of, of three Wheeler ownership. So,
Speaker 1: Um, right. Let's get back into some of the, the details again, [00:17:00] before we get out here. Um, these little sort of snails eyes, um, up here, what are they, what are they all about?
Speaker 2: So this was another really fun challenge. The position lights on a, on a car have quite a, a wide angle requirement. So quite understandably position lights and indicators, they need to sort of reflect 80 degrees sideways. So you can see a car emerging from a junction, a headlight doesn't, that's got a 40 degree view and angle were much, much tighter together. Had we left the position, lights and indicators within the headlight cluster, the whole [00:17:30] headlight would've had to be up here or way further forward to look past these wheels. Um, we wanted them to be nice and low slung and, and pulled in. Um, so by separating the position light into these little machine to Mallin sort of turrets here, uh, we actually call them snails ice. The marketing team have rebranded them turrets, but snails eyes. Um, they sit just above there now, and then these therefore can look past the wheel arch, whereas these can look forward. So this is working with the constraints, [00:18:00] hopefully in quite a dynamic way. Um, and it's actually informed the design and they've become quite a feature actually, which we're, we're quite pleased with
Speaker 1: The moving on to the, we've got, um, three different sort of materials. So we've got leather in this and then there's a technical,
Speaker 2: Yeah, that that's right. That's right. So we've really started to look at, um, some of the materials we use in Morgan for some time now, um, the team have wanted to celebrate leather a little bit more rather than bathing our cars in leather. So we tend to have high quality leathers just at the points of contact. [00:18:30] Anyway, um, with this particular car, the super three we've developed, uh, a new two new leathers, actually one very typical sort of automotive leather that we've really looked at the water resistance, um, capabilities of that as well as some really striking colors actually. And then we have a premium leather, which is almost a saddle leather. It's like a natural bro. Leather just got a great durability properties and weather resistance. Again, recognizing this carpet is completely exposed. Um, so we've really retuned and refined our leathers, our leather [00:19:00] authoring in this car.
Speaker 2: But we also, like you say to a technical fabric, um, which is a again, highly waterproof, um, very, very durable, you know, you could stand on the seats or have flying around the car and again, taking the sort of wind and rain and all the abuse and stay looking really fresh, um, vegan as well. So that's another world first. Um, so yeah, looking at all the different material options inside the car, but you'll see that the upholstery and the leather is just at these points of contact and everything else you see is [00:19:30] actually the, the structure of the vehicle. So all of these metal element sides here, this is the chassis. And as you, as you mentioned earlier, Morgan's first ever MoCo, um, and that's, uh, that's for quite good reason, really. Um, firstly, you know, there's, there's no waste all, all the structure is the bit you actually see there's no B panels and over trimmings just for the sake of a step six we've we've, you know, made the structure, the visual element of the car. But what it also means is the floor pan area in the middle, which is sheet and fold, laser cut, [00:20:00] aluminum, quite familiar technology to us can be recalibrated in future quite easily. So for example, if you wanted a change, the drive train, um, you could, you could do that. So under that side, you'll see is our fuel tank under this side, we've got a void, which is a convenient, handy space for, uh, for storage. But, um, also like I say, leaves opportunity for future.
Speaker 1: You're gonna build an EV buddy. I mean that, that's, that's what, that's what you're leading up to. It's all there for an EV
Speaker 2: Ultimately we've [00:20:30] invested in this platform, uh, and you know, we're a small company and investing in the future is really important for us.
Speaker 1: That's a yes, then.
Speaker 2: Well, look, we make no secret about it. Morgan is investing in electrification. Um, you have to, and it's really important to us and actually something we are really excited about. We created in 2016, I believe a, a fully electric EV three. Um, and for many of us at the Morgan America be that was kind of the one that got away. We'd love to have seen that. Um, appearing in reality, this new [00:21:00] platform is kind of paving the way for that technology to be as part of one of our core product pillars. Um, three Wheeler represe sense, not just the entry level, um, product range from Morgan, but also a bit of a brand halo effect. And it's a great product platform to start introducing new technologies like electrification before it becomes range wide in future. Um, we definitely see a big opportunity for an ICU engine powered, naturally aspirated, super engaging analog in low Petro engine car, but there's no doubt about it. This [00:21:30] platform does give us opportunity to recalibrate for electrification in future
Speaker 1: And talking about electrics whilst we're here, uh, the dials in here, digital, you like what I did, that, that we've
Speaker 2: Got a digital dials. Um, we're really pleased with these actually. So as these startup, they've got a really interest intro sequence. Everything, as you can see is digital, but there's no 3d fake effects. It's block color. It's, it's traditional. It's like the, the Dawn of electrification and early game boy Teris screens and the graphics almost it's, uh, [00:22:00] it's a beautiful, we're really pleased with the way that those does are come through. You see the fuel tanks, either side as the, as you go through your fuel, they down almost like the the's draining into the vehicle. There's a little marker there that chases around the outside as a very simple visual indicator of, you know, where you are in the rear range, when that hits the top, bounces red and comes back again. And they're, um, they're really exciting for us
Speaker 1: And set really lovely aluminum
Speaker 2: In these allium cast, allium tunnels. Um, poor one thing that we try to do despite [00:22:30] a very aggressive bill of materials target is make sure that we weren't sacrificing on, on quality. Um, so everything that you see is cold to the touch it's metal. These are cast aluminum much like the castings on the front. All the switch gear is very analog, very tactile. We've got the bomb release button in the middle to start the, um, the only big difference really in terms of the switch gear from the outgoing three Wheeler is that this is IP 65 rated. You can, you can jet wash it. In fact, we did jet wash it. We drove these down a [00:23:00] beach, um, as part of the, uh, the press content gathering. And, uh, we kind of finished the day thinking we can't take these back to the workshop, looking like this. And the, the chaps there kindly let us of jet wash and we did just jet wash them all out. And, um, and proof was in the pudding there. Uh, they still work. So that's good
Speaker 1: Below the total switch and everything. We've got the fly of hand breaks, still fly. The last one, which I, I love is great. And then gearbox. So still the MX five, five speed gearbox.
Speaker 2: So to be honest, engine backwards, this is very familiar territory [00:23:30] to us. Mazda five speed gear box. There's a prop shaft behind that that has a bevel box just behind the seats here, which converts the drive 90 degrees. And then there's a belt for the final drive, the back, um, very similar mechanical makeup to the outgoing three Wheeler. Um, we, we have re-explored every component along that chain, the bevel box in particular we've um, we completely re-engineered that. So we have a, I wouldn't say it was silent and to be honest, we're glad it's not, cuz it's nice hearing all the cogs were and the noise, but we've [00:24:00] taken out some of the high pitch frequency and a bit of the irregularity and it has a much more of solid feel to the thing.
Speaker 1: And the belt's now got carbon fiber in
Speaker 2: It. I see it is a LAR reinforced belt, um, which is a, you know, prevents stretch and also just keeps everything as it should be back then not rat and uh, and quiet
Speaker 1: Other things on the interior fact. It's not in this one, it's in the one over there, but there is sat nav.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Another world first for Morgan. Um, we've got, again, really good fun partnership actually with a company called Bline Moto that have [00:24:30] worked with us on a, a navigation solution for Morgan, but it's not a, a big screen with all the information in the world. It's this beautiful little round device that essentially got two elements. It's got a number that counts down and an arrow that points. And when the number reaches zero, whichever way, the hour is pointing you the turn and it, it runs directly from Google maps. So it's, you know, it's live and up to date and actually it's all, it's all you need. I have one on my motorcycle and to be honest, I don't, I dunno, we're not missing anything else really. That's it's just here in front of the driver, um, on the column, um, this has been, you [00:25:00] know, we've put a lot of attention to the controls in general.
Speaker 2: So as with the last three Wheeler, the seat is entirely fixed. That's important. The, the, the visual relationship between the cockpit and the exterior on this car, all the controls you bring to you. So the steering wheel is got reach and break adjustment. Additionally, to that, you can change the steering wheel. All of our steering wheels are motor litter steering wheels, and you can have a 14 inch or a 13 inch wood or leather, um, with dish with a out dish. So you can pick the wheel that suits you suits you best. [00:25:30] And then the pedals themselves are adjustable, which isn't new. The last ones were as well. Although this time it's not a bolted operation underneath the car for 20 minutes, it's a quick release on a slider. So fully customizable cockpit and controls. And to be honest, one of the, you know, one of the first things we did, we had the engine there and we positioned some wheels in the workshop. And then the next thing we did was seats and interior. And we had bits of wood and boxes and bricks. And we were just setting out that, that interior from an ergonomic point of view. Um, and it was, [00:26:00] it was, they became our hard points really early on. So we think we've considered the, the range comfort, um, quite extensively.
Speaker 1: And I've noticed that you've got, I mean, you say there's, there's so many accessories for this. There's the globetrot of sort of cases that you've designed in collaboration with them, but also some clothing as well. I think for people that want to sort of want the, the full
Speaker 2: Look we've got really carried away over the last two years, actually, it's nice that you come to talk about it, but, um, now that we've been working with, um, ma London than, um, just this awesome [00:26:30] motorcycle inspired apparel, that's really, really fit for purpose. Um, and it's this really thick wax cotton jackets. We've invented a new piece of clothing called a knee guard, which clips onto your jacket. And you look quite cool. We're hoping to reinvent this kind of look when you're outside of the car, but in truth, when you're in the car, anything that hits your chest tends to run down. So drive a Morgan free Wheeler in the rain, and you soon have a wet crotch and these, uh, these knee guards sit over your lap and tuck you all in. You actually get to a really nice place and, you know, they're really good fun. So we've [00:27:00] got new clothing that matches some of the pans on the car as well.
Speaker 1: It's a more sophisticated tar and rug over the legs. Isn't it basically
Speaker 2: That, but no, it's, it's super cool. And it's been, it's been really good for actually sort of exploring some of the use cases of these cars and then trying to come up with solutions to answer them. It's been, it's been great actually.
Speaker 1: And then moving down the, sort of the back of the car here, we've always see, got this lovely sort of boat tail, and then another aluminum casting in the back as well.
Speaker 2: And that's right. And [00:27:30] trying to, um, you know, trying to keep in, in keeping with the rest of the car, we're trying to get as many the jobs to do as many things for us as, uh, every part to do as many jobs as possible. This rear casting is acting as the, the bracing device to bolt the two sides of the are together. It also becomes the, the hinge point for the booted. So the boot kind of concertinas within that. If you were to have one of our exterior luggage racks, it also hinges off there. It's the number plate light, and actually set in here is this tiny little laser light looks like Johnny five's [00:28:00] mouth or night rider or something, and that's doing our fog and reverse bit. And then we got our Morgan name stamped into there as well, um, is quite industrial and quite in keeping some of the rest of the design inspirations on the
Speaker 1: Car. And obviously on that side, you know, we were used to having two exhausts down the side from a V twin before now we just got single exhaust, but it's still pretty cool coming out that side.
Speaker 2: We have one exhaust shooting through the car and that fires out the side and it's just cut off straight like a race car. The only way we're actually, we're sort of, um, [00:28:30] able to get away with such a sharp tipped sort of brutal look and exhaust is because this rib design feature around the side, um, protects anyone from touching that edge of the exhaust. So, um, we've been able to sort of make that work in our favor and we have this ceramic coated white, black exhaust piercing through the side, right? This, this feature actually is, is something we're really pleased with as well. This has taken a lot of inspiration from, um, sort of jet fuselages and belly tank races of the sort of mid early century whereby they'd bring two [00:29:00] halves or a press shell together. And instead of sea welding, they'd sort of flange them and bolt them together like the central buying on a spaghetti Atlantic or something. Um, and so we've sort of made a play on that with this rib feature through the middle
Speaker 1: Rear wheel under here, same sizes before it's 1, 9, 5 55 16, that's
Speaker 2: Right. Very comparable. That is a car derived tire on the back, much larger contact patch. Um, and, uh, and yeah, that's, that's very well unchanged underneath there. Um, interestingly this whole back end of [00:29:30] the car, we actually did a lot of aerodynamic work here as well, not just at the front end of the vehicle. And what we were finding is this area was trapping a lot of sort of turbulent air and causing quite a bit of drag. So behind the number plate, you can see a tiny little slotted mouth, which is evacuating the air from that area. So it doesn't sort of act as a carrier bag going down the road and that's actually helping eject the air out the back of the car too. So lots of, um, I think that's, that's Testament to some of the upfront engineering. We did this, these particular cars here are actually [00:30:00] sort of old months old in terms of their design status, maturity, their engineering prototypes EPS. Um, and you know, we're now at the Dawn of production on these cars. So, um, these are actually quite old cars and the reason we've managed to keep them fairly true to how they're gonna be is a lot of upfront digital design work for the engineering and design teams. So everything on this car was not only design in a digital environment. Um, but we also did all of our analysis, CFD CA AE, um, everything digitally before we committed to production. So,
Speaker 1: [00:30:30] And in terms of performance, which sort of seems somehow slightly irrelevant, but, but with looking at the same sort of performances before,
Speaker 2: Uh, no, this is, this is, is definitely a quicker car, um, and dynamically, um, quite a bit different, actually it's the last car, the outgoing car was around about 68 horsepower. This is 118 horsepower. The weight is comparable. This is around the 600 mark. It's about 620, um, at the moment. And, uh, the acceleration is, you know, under seven seconds, top speed, about 130 [00:31:00] miles an hour, which is plenty. Yes. And, and I mean, to be honest, we did, when we were exploring the power trains, there were, um, you know, bigger capacity and more powerful engines available to us. But for us, it was really important that the, the ride handling and the character and the driving was fun and enjoyable. And, um, it wasn't just about having the biggest top trumps numbers on, on pay. Um, it was about being able to enjoy driving the car. Um, and it just felt like the sweet spot for us,
Speaker 1: John, thank you very much, indeed. I [00:31:30] can't wait to drive it at some point.
Speaker 2: No problem at all. Thank you.
Speaker 1: The price for a super three hasn't been confirmed yet, but is likely to start at around 40,000 pounds, which is comparable with the previous situation that is, of course, before you get stuck into the configurator. Yes. There is one and start adding some of the many options. Would you go contemporary your traditional with your color scheme, paired back or pan it up full screen or none at all? Whatever you choose. I think it's fair to [00:32:00] say that you'll still stand out in the best possible way. Driving a Morgan with three wheels.
