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Wilson,

 

Was it your car that I saw in the Summer of 2011 on the Isle de Re? 

 

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Best regards,

 

C.

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Christoph, 

 

My modern Morgan was only acquired last week. It has a 2 litre Vee Twin S&S engine putting out a very modest 88 BHP but the car only weighs 550kg. 

 

My 1929 one was very different from the car you show above and looked much more like the modern ones. It had an Aero Blackburne Vee Twin 1 litre engine. This was an engine made for ultra lightweight aeroplanes made from bamboo and doped paper in the 1920's. In the aero engine fashion of the time, it had four valves per cylinder with external rockers and hairspring type valve springs. For safety in the air, it had twin magnetos (British Thomson Houston), two spark plugs per cylinder and dry sump with twin Pilgrim pumps. When it went, it was pretty fast and scary to drive, especially for a 16 year old (it was classed as a motorcycle and sidecar, so could be driven by 16 year olds). The front brakes were worked by an external brake lever and the single rear by a foot pedal. The throttle was a long lever coming from the centre of the steering wheel. It originally would have had a two speed gearbox but this had been changed before I got it to the later three speed and reverse box. This was very much designed as a competition car. It was very difficult to start and my father lost his temper with it one day when I was away at university and pushed it very hard out of the way up to the end of the family garage. It hit the back wall and the parts at the front were destroyed, the two magnetos and the oil pumps. In the early 1960's in the north of Scotland, there was no chance at all of finding replacement items for these parts. Probably only about 10 or 12 Aero Blackburne Morgans were ever made, as they were considerably more expensive than the regular JAP (J.A.Prestwich) Vee Twin models and in reality no faster. I gave the remains away to someone who was going to fit a Matchless Vee Twin. 

 

The model you show is the family model Morgan F4 which is a very different car. It was made in various versions from 1932 for the next 20 years. It had a pressed steel chassis and 4 seat body in place of the tubular chassis/two seat body of the Vee Twin models and used a much smoother Ford 4 cylinder 933cc side valve engine from the Ford 8 or some had the 1198cc engine from the Ford 10. It was much more civilised than the Vee Twin models but nothing like as sporting, given that it had much less power and was close to double the weight. The 933cc Ford engine produced around 20 BHP. A good JAP 1100 running on Benzole/Petrol mix could produce 50+ BHP. Supercharged JAP engines were not uncommon producing anything up to 80+ BHP. The drivers of those must have been very brave  :o

 

Wilson

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Christoph, 

 

On looking at your photos more carefully, I think that is actually an F Super model, which was the slightly more sporting two seat version of the F4, introduced in 1937 with the 1198cc engine. It was a reasonable half way house between the family F4 and very fast but crude and difficult to drive Vee Twin models. Various companies made overhead valve conversions for the Ford Side Valve engines and if you had deep pockets, there was even a twin overhead cam conversion, although I cannot imagine the bottom end of the engine having a very long life with that. 

 

Wilson

Edited by wlaidlaw
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When Jay Leno got one and drove it through his neighborhood he was certain he passed a police car far too fast and was surprised the police didn't stop him.  On the way back he pulled over behind the police car and learned he had passed much slower than he had thought.  The new Moggie 3-wheeler gives a heightened sense of speed, according to Jay.

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Having correctly guessed Wilson's last challenge, I think it's now my turn to post one for those interested in playing the game to identify.

 

I think the attached image fragment happens to contain all the essential elements necessary to readily and positively allow anyone with even casual interest in classic cars to identify this example.

 

What's the name of this car's manufacturer.

 

JZG

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Well done, Stuart - you guessed correctly.

 

It may be just a sliver of the whole image but I thought it contained the very essence of the Allard J2, the largest selling model by far of all the Allerds……..namely, the cycle fenders, one of the three famous "Buick-style" portholes, which of course in Allard's case were functional, not mere pot-metal castings to impress bystanders, and a Stromberg #97 carburetor, indicating the presence of a 313 cu. inch Caddy V-8.

 

Interesting cars, big, fast, fun to work on and most importantly, fun-to-drive.

 

Yopur turn, Stuart

 

JZG

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Edited by John Z. Goriup
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There were two if not three of these on the Colorado Grand. Given that not many were made, it is amazing how many J2's you still see. The survival rate must be very high or maybe it is like AC Cobras. 998 made in total, 10,000+ now in existence  :)

 

Wilson

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John -

 

Beautiful, interesting photos, as usual.

 

Let's try this one that I've been holding back from posting outside of this thread for a few days. For the first image (perhaps the only one needed), and interior shot with the marque's logo cloned out:

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Time for another hint:

 

 

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No, not any of those.  perhaps this will do it:

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