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A 3-cylinder engine and no more wood frame. This is a trike for the 21st century.
Meet the Morgan Super 3, the modern successor to the defiantly vintage Morgan 3 Wheeler. The old car was something of a biplane, says Morgan, while the new one is living in the jet era.
Replacing a car as, ahem, quirky as the 3 Wheeler is no mean feat. What was a disruptor over a decade ago might not have as much impact second time round. Thankfully, with an all-new design direction and a fresh take on some of the 3 Wheeler’s foibles/charms, Morgan is confident that the Super 3 moves the game forward.
Powered by a 118-hp 1.5-liter Ford three-cylinder making 110 lb-ft of torque, the Super 3 sends its power to a single driven rear wheel via a Mazda five-speed manual transmission. Instrumented testing has yet to occur, but expect a 0-60 time around 7 seconds and a top speed of 130 mph. Impressive numbers for comparatively little power, but then, it weighs just 1400 pounds.
Brisk pace aside, the Super 3 does a few things rather differently. The biggest change, for Morgan fans at least, is that there’s no wood on board. "Truth be told, we did have a meeting where we sat down and said, 'right, where are we putting the wood?'" says Morgan Motor Company head of design Jon Wells. "It was really short, because having to ask that question meant that it didn't really have a place."
No ash in a Morgan? That's right: The Super 3 features by Morgan’s first ever monocoque. It's made using superformed aluminum, where the metal is heated to nearly 1000 degrees F and pressed against a mold, a technique Morgan previously used on the Aero GT. The monocoque makes the Super 3 stronger and more rigid than any of its three-wheeled predecessors by a long shot. Wells says factory test-drivers still haven't found a way to break the cars. "We've had cars running day and night now for months, generating tens of thousands of miles of durability, day and night," he says. "It's the most extensively tested Morgan I've been involved with in my decade here."
The old car’s distinctive S&S V-twin engine was key to its charm—a visual party piece as well as a characterful thing to drag the car around. With its modern inline-three fully hidden, the Super 3 has a very different look and feel from its immediate ancestor. Though it's not a complete departure: Early Morgan trikes often ran inboard motors, occasionally supplied by Ford, even. The "Super" name also has a long history at Morgan, in case you were worried things were getting too modern too quickly.
With no engine drawing the eye on the front end, Wells and his team had to create fresh drama on the Super 3. Everything is set behind the front wheels to avoid a nose-heavy look. Much like the outgoing car, it’s honest about what it is—Wells says the design is driven by functionality, simplicity, and honesty. The metalwork up front might look dramatic, but it’s all structural, keeping the engine in place. That powerplant may not be fully on display the way the old V-twin was, but you can still partly see it through the mesh grille. A slick new dished wheel design wears specially designed Avon Speedmaster tires, sitting inside new, tapered fenders that allow a tighter turning circle than the last 3 Wheeler.
The new car is only four inches wider than before, but the extra space brings a lot of functionality. Side-blades funnel air down the sides of the car, some of it fed to the new water-cooled engine's radiators. These blades do a good job of hiding a lot of visual weight, and create a handy new place to store luggage.
A new, patented mounting system wraps around the leading edge of the cabin and down the side-blades, providing places to attach cargo, phone holders, even GoPros. This will be welcomed by those hearty souls who've pressed their 3 Wheelers into long-distance touring duty. "Over the last 10 years, we've seen many weird and wonderful, exciting, inventive ways to carry luggage," Wells says. The Super 3 offers previously unheard-of features like cup holders, as well as Morgan's first-ever GPS, a collaboration with Beeline Moto.
Despite a rather tiny width increase, the interior looks much bigger than before. The seats, available in plenty of weather-ready upholstery options, are fixed, with adjustable pedals and steering wheel. A hidden lock-box beneath the seats provides secure storage. As before, the gauges are centrally mounted, but aside from the signature flip-cover starter button, everything inside the cockpit is new. Fresh toggle switches and digital gauges bring the Super 3 out of the Thirties and into the... Eighties? They're cooler and more modern either way. Wells points out that the entire cockpit is waterproof, so if you end up getting muddy on some sort of adventure, you can hose it clean. Morgan says the Super 3 is the most configurable car it's ever built, counting all the options for paint, luggage, trim, graphics, windshield and more.
Wells is happy to acknowledge that the old car was both charming and flawed. The Super 3 should be far more well-sorted. "This is quite a different proposition," he says. "This is a high-revving engine that enjoys being worked through the gears and revved quite high until you find the power." On curvy roads, the new Super 3 should impress. "It turns in very quickly," Wells says. "It's nimble and dynamic and feels a lot more stable." Wells insists this is no short-run toy. "It's a car that really wants to be driven quite hard and for quite a long time," he says. "It's perfect for touring and finding mountain passes, and equally at home sat on the motorway, ducked down behind the fly screens with the heaters on. It's a nice car to glide long-distance in."
Clean-sheet redesigns are a rarity with Morgan, and the Super 3 does an admirable job of honoring what came before while embracing modernity in meaningful ways. And it doesn't end here. Remember the electric EV3 concept? "Morgan is considering electrification programs," Wells says, "and all of the vehicles it’s developing now have a long life span in front of them." A new three wheeler, and one with a potential electric future? Whatever they’re drinking in Malvern, it must be good.
The Super 3 is available now and will retail from £41,995 in the U.K. That's roughly $57,000 by current exchange rates, but official U.S. pricing will be announced later.