Cars
The Nostalgia of Forgotten Gods: Morgan (cars), UK, 1935
The Morgan car brand, known for its handmade vehicles built on a wooden frame, has produced the heir of its first-ever model, a tricycle with two front wheels, for almost a century.
“Good news for woodworms” was the headline of a major automotive magazine years ago, announcing a new Morgan model. In fact, it’s well known that the cars from this English brand, which has staunchly resisted any temptation of modernization for almost a hundred years, are painstakingly built on a wooden frame. In reality, it’s not the load-bearing element of the car (the chassis), as almost everyone believes, but a frame in ash wood upon which the body panels are lovingly fixed. Woodworms can still rejoice, but for historians who don’t know, it’s time for an update.
Contributing to the charm of the Morgan, founded by Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan and carried on over the years by his son Peter, is the fact that for decades, it has produced the heir of its first ever model: a tricycle with two front wheels, powered by an air-cooled two-cylinder motorcycle engine with just two creature comforts: the pleasure of ownership and sheer fun of driving it. The origin of the idea was a decidedly practical one: to avoid paying the taxes that cars were subjected to back in the day by being considered a motorcycle.
