Chris Johnson is the proud owner of this vintage Morgan that won second place in the Classic Cars Category of the Cayman Islands International Car Show, presented by Tony’s Toys that took place on Saturday, Jan. 18 at the Festival Green in Camana Bay.

Chris’ car is a 1983 Morgan Plus 8.

The Morgan Motor Company was founded in 1910 by Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan, generally known as “HFS” and was run by him until he died at age 77 in 1959.

Since 2011, the Morgan Motor Company and its related companies, (Aero Racing Limited and Morgan 3 Wheeler Ltd) have been wholly owned divisions of Morgan Technologies, a company incorporated in late 2010.

Morgan is based in Malvern Link, an area of Malvern, Worcestershire and employs 163 people. Morgan produced 640 cars in 2007. All the cars are assembled by hand. The waiting list for a car is approximately one to two years, although it has been as high as ten years in the past

The visitor centre and museum feature a guided tour of the factory and exhibits about the company’s history from Edwardian times until the present day, developments in automobile technology, and a display of automobiles.

In spite of their traditional design, Morgans have always had sporting or “sports car” performance, due to their extremely low weight.

Among their enthusiasts, Morgans are affectionately known as “Moggies”.

H.F.S. Morgan’s 1909 Runabout used sliding pillar suspension, an independent front suspension system with each front wheel mounted on a kingpin mounted to slide along a fixed pillar and located by a spring. Morgan used developments of this suspension system throughout its existence and it is still used on Morgan’s “classic” line, although not on the Aero 8 or its derivatives.

The Morgan Plus 8 is a sports car built by Morgan between 1968 and 2004. Its instant and enduring popularity has been credited with saving the company and keeping the company famous during the 36 years of its manufacture. Among Morgan enthusiasts, it is deeply associated with Peter Morgan, the owner-chairman behind its design.

The original Plus 8s engines were based on the Rover V8 which had been bought by Rover. Morgan was the first of a succession of sports car makers- including the likes of TVR and Marcos- to use the engine, which Rover had only just made available in the P5B saloon.

The Plus 8 development car used a Rover V8 block and the Plus 8 was launched in 1968 using Rover’s production engine, itself a re-engineered version of the Buick 215 block (renamed the 3.5 L by Rover) with a compression of 10.5:1 fueled by two SU HS6 carburettors. By 1973, the Rover 3500 saloon was available with a manual 4 speed gearbox and this engine/gearbox configuration was adopted by Morgan although the compression dropped to 9.25:1 with a resulting loss of power. With the adoption of an improved version of the block developed for the Rover SD1 in 1977, compression was increased to 9.35:1 and power increased. After 1981 the engine was fueled by two Stromberg carburettors, .

At the end of 1983, the company offered an EFI version using a Bosch L-Jetronic based system. With the added power (204 bhp (152 kW; 207 PS)) and low weight, the Plus 8 was, according to the magazine road tests of the day, able to best a Porsche up to 90 mph (140 km/h). In 1990, a 3.9 L version of the block was added using the Lucas 14CUX fuel injection system.

In 1996, a 4.6 L version found its way into the car as an option, still using the 1CUX system. From 2000, all Morgan Plus 8s were fueled by the GEMS system as used on the Range Rover P38a between 1994 and 1999.

On the 2012 Geneva Motor Show, Morgan introduced a new edition of the Plus 8 roadster, powered by a 4.7L BMW V8-Engine.

Source: Wikipedia