Greetings - as I had been away from my computer for about 2 weeks I had
a build-up of about 80 "Morgan" messages when I got back to it today.
Amazing! You are a prolific bunch! At least in terms of writing.
We left with our Morgan from Revillo, South Dakota, the late afternoon
of December 22nd and were stopped about 200 miles south by the build-up
of ice in I-29, specifically at Sioux City, Iowa. That was my first
experience with that sort of a condition with a Morgan and I was pretty
well impressed with the car's stability on the 70 or so miles of
ice-covered road that we did drive that evening. This sort of driving
is never fun but I was able to feel pretty comfortable at about 50 mph
on it. It was lightly raining and freezing - typical stuff for us when
the temps are at the 25 degree mark.
The next day, the 23rd, we drove from Sioux City to Dallas, TX., a
distance of a little over 900 miles - and we did it in one sitting. It
rained heavily for about half of that distance. The Morgan Motor
Company should have taken one of those 3 wiper blades that they put on
the outside and placed it on the inside where it could really do some
good. Since I kept the car pretty much at a steady 90 mph, the wind
tended to force the rain water up over the windshield and under the hood
and then down the inside of the windshield. Of course, that gave my
wife something to do for a good part of that drive - so it wasn't all
bad, I guess.
The next day the weather was quite nice and sunny and we drove as far as
Las Cruces, NM. As we neared Abilene, TX., and were headed into a stiff
quartering wind coming out of the NW, the windshield cracked diagonally
across the the lower LH side and out about 6" from the corner. The
crack appeared right before my eyes and I know there was no
precipitating factor, such as a rock or anything else. I presume it to
be the result of body flex. An out-of-the-ordinary incident, but then
the Morgan is not an ordinary car.
The next morning we awoke to a nice snowfall and the desert was very
pretty to drive across. The snow pretty much ended near the AZ border
and from there on to Yuma things looked pretty much as you would expect
a desert to look. At the point where I-8 meets I-10 near Casa Grande I
put the needle at the 100 mph mark and kept it there until we reached
the foothills just east of Yuma. That was a good 100 mile stretch and
that was a kick! We certainly weren't the fastest car on the road on
that stretch - but it wasn't a race either.
I might say here that I feel this car's "natural speed" is at about the
90 mph mark and it is quite a comfortable speed for the car to be at and
for the passengers. At 100, while the car certainly isn't straining in
any way, the wind buffetting is that much more noticeable. I really
can't say the "bounce" is any different.
Our interstate highways, especially since we have now pretty much
uniformly raised our speed limits, are virtual racetracks and we were
routinely passed by many cars throughout this trip. A 1987 Morgan Plus
8 simply can't keep up with even the cheaper of the newest cars out
there today - and I really doubt the newest Morgans can either, even
with the upgraded Rover engines. The basic design of the car, the flat
windshield and the suspension system, I think, tends to limit one to
that 100 mph mark. I don't know, maybe the newest ones feel safe at the
110-120 mph mark.
Our return was uneventful other than, on about the Utah/Colorado border
I happened to run over a piece of steel that punctured a rear tire and
the hit up under the rear fender and punched a hole in it about the size
of a dime. That's life and it comes with the territory. Where the
Morgan really impressed me was in the fact that the car gave no
indication of the puncture other than a gradual, involuntary slowdown to
about 70 mph. At that point it was clear that we had lost a tire and,
by the time we got stopped, it was completely shredded. Throughout the
car was a steady as a rock and it did not waver a fraction of an inch.
Since I was again running it at about 100 mph at the time of the
puncture - that was a very reassuring and impressive performance!
We also took the last stretch, from Grand Junction, CO., to Revillo, a
distance of 1,150 miles, in one sitting. To say the Morgan is not a
comfortable ride, within certain parameters, is not very accurate in our
view. Of course, we do recognize the possibility that we are totally
nuts too!
In any event, we did drive the Morgan a total of 5,000 miles in 12 days.
It took 215 gallons of gasoline and the car achieved 23.26 mpg. I was
able to buy a Cooper speed-rated tire for $98 in Grand Junction and have
now only talked with my auto restorer about the dent and the hole in the
rear fender. I haven't done anything yet about the windshield.
The car is an absolute thrill to drive, although I am not all that sure
I can really tell you why. I hope the suspension system is never
changed because I would then not know what the point would be in owning
one. I guess this is as close to H.G. Wells' "Time Machine" as we can
get - and that is really neat!
Arlo Levisen
1987 Morgan Plus 8
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