NW-Mogazine Volume 33, Number 3 <strong>May</strong> & June 2013 20
ME AND MY MORGAN From Canada Track & Traffic, March, 1962 Submitted to the NW-Mogazine by Chris Allen ONE HOT STICKY afternoon here in Toronto, I was kicking the tires on my second hand Karman Ghia and wondering, if I took a hacksaw to it, perhaps I could make it a convertible. Summer does that to me. <strong>May</strong>be I should wear a hat. Anyway there I was squinting at my car . . . you see, if you squint your eyes and cock your head like so, you can just about imagine it's a Ferrari Berlinetta. I admit you've really got to squint, but $14,000 is quite an incentive. Need-less to say you can't go through life maintaining this posture - not and keep your friends. Besides, when you actually step on the gas, you'd have to be a Zen Buddhist to maintain the illusion. In this daydreamy frame of mind (people do, you know) up to the drugstore and bought the latest car magazines. Once, when I had a 1949 TC. I drove to the drugstore for a magazine and became so engrossed in it that I walked home. Honest. Didn't remember it till after supper. But I digress. As I stood there with the magazines clutched in my hot little hands - it was summer after all - how could I know that it contained the key to transform me from a dreamer into a Man of Action? But there it was on page 34, an article by a discerning gentleman called Alan Beck, about the last of the Classics. The Morgan. It hit me like a birdcage (Maserati variety). How could I have forgotten the Morgan? That the nearest dealer was 250 miles away might have had some bearing on it, of course. Here was a car, a brand new car, that didn't cost a fortune and didn't need to be restored, and that looked like my late beloved T.C. without squint-ing. Fondly I imagined those devoted craftsmen pain-stakingly putting together the old-fashioned ash fram-ing, perhaps even affectionately carving their initials on the doorposts. Possibly the fact that my maternal uncles and grandfather were all carpenters might have had some Mendelian bearing on my enthusiasm. I skimmed quickly over the author's jocular ref-erences to the need for wipers on the inside of the windshield and to the Allard-like ride, and concen-trated on "that settle down and purr quality at top speeds". That really got an old cat lover like me. Vividly imagining the exhaust crackle as I down-shifted to third at 60 and masterfully drifted the Morgan through a fast righthander, I left the drug-store in a happy daze of anticipation which lasted until my front door. Abruptly I recalled my dear wife's delusion that the Ghia was "good for two or three years yet". The poor dear has no mechanical ability whatsoever. She can't seem to understand that a man just knows when a car is about to fall apart and needs replacing. She also has peculiar ideas about open sports cars in zero weather. Perhaps it would be kinder to draw a tonneau cover over the ensuing few weeks. Married readers can draw on their own experience and in all fairness, it might be better not to prejudice the single ones. When the smoke of battle had subsided and the forces of conservatism put to rout, I took off on a recon-naissance flight to Windsor. Curley and Vic, partners in Ontario's only Morgan dealership welcomed me cordially. I've no idea how good they are as salesmen, because from my first look at that black beauty of a wire-wheeled, drophead coupe, I was hooked, lined and sinkered. At this point Curley separates the men from the boys. He casually mentions the nine month wait -ing period. Nine months later I arrived back in Windsor for my baby. I mean car. Curley checked me out on the care and feeding thereof, namely, which nuts would need tightening in how many miles, and the proper greasing of the 50-yearold front suspension. 50-year-old design that is. Proudly clutching the cherry wood steering wheel (optional extra) I drove off. I drove off into a new career as a Morgan information centre, P.R. man and Defender of the Faith, and goofed the first time out. Not two miles outside Windsor a poor misguided Sprite owner actually waved at me with-out waiting for me to wave first, and I returned the salute! My only excuse is the dulling of my instinct for the correct pecking order, by too many years of subjugation to Der Beetle. Still slightly shaken and more than a little frus-trated from driving 250 miles at break-in max. of 2500 rpm, I arrived home to be immediately sur-rounded by hundreds of curious neighbours. Well, 20 anyway. “It looks like a small Rolls Royce". I glow. "Look at the funny car, mom". I glower. "How fast will she go mister?" "Oh, about 100" (carefully casual). "Won't the spare wheel get wet?" Words fail me. My new career had begun in earnest, and from being a newcomer to the neighbourhood, suddenly I'm on waving terms with everyone. Even the mailman likes me. The last people had a rather mean tempered mastiff parked in the driveway. The ensuing months of Morganeering taxed my P.R. abilities to the limit. Outside Stratford, Ontario, a service station Story by John Garden McNicol; Illustration by Maurice Snelgrove NW-Mogazine Volume 33, Number 3 <strong>May</strong> & June 2013 21 attendant asked me, "What kind of motor's in it?" "A T.R.3," I replied. "What year is it?" "It's brand new." 'I mean the car, not the motor". Oh well. At the golf course a stranger remarked pleasantly as he passed, 'It's a fine car the M.G" "Yes," I agreed pleasantly through white lips, "They are". Just last week at an intersection, a dear old soul came over to ask, "Is that a Jaguar?" "No, ma'am, it's a Morgan." "A Borga?" "No, Morgan," very patiently. "Oh it's sweet, we used to have a Riley". 'You don't say," I started warmly, "I used to … .“ "Now we have a BUICK." I ground the gears getting into first. The other day the radar boys from the local constabulary were kind enough to point out to me that I was exceeding the speed limit. A broadly smiling gendarme waved me over. "You won't believe this," he beamed, "but you're the first Morgan I've ever caught." For one fleeting incredulous moment I thought he was going to overlook the ticket. Sanity, however, prevailed. As a conversation piece, you will have gathered, the Morgan is worth its weight in Track & Traffic's. To date these conversations have made me late for three business appointments, one golf game, and one date with my wife. It says volumes for the Morgan's powers of seduction that she accepted my explanation sympathetically. Nevertheless my affection for the Morgan is continuing to deepen, reinforced by the appreciative remarks of many who seem to see in it a gallant reminder that progress isn't necessarily al-ways improvement. It's an old cliche that "They don't build them like they used to." Fortunately Mr. Morgan still does.
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