Morgan Roadster

You know how you see a lot of modern architecture? From the Seagram Building to Taipei 101, it's all modular glass panels, prefabbed concrete and steel cladding? And then you walk into Westminister Hall...

And you see that vaulted roof that's been there for centuries. Well for me it's the same thing. Not on the same scale, but the same concept. We can still build cathedrals as beautifully as they used to do but (with the exception of St John the Divine in NYC), we don't. Cars like the Packard Caribbean are not made anymore. Passats are.

Morgan is a small British manufacturer that somehow has stayed alive when many other bigger players have gone to the wall. Jeremy Clarkson has described the new Morgan Roadster as '...comically incompetent'. He referred to the fact that in comparison to a 911, for instance, racing the car from A to B, might be one of the least refined experiences around, and be cause for an enormous amount of anxiety. But before I finished the end of his article, he pointed out, that whilst he wouldn't have one, he can certainly understand why many would. That the over-engineering that permeates so many production vehicles, inadvertantly is driving out all that inherent character we seek in our purchases, that immutable factor that we relish and makes our car different from what our next door neighbour's.

Morgan have thrived by not becoming too ambitiousm but by doing the simple well. From understanding, where they can, how production can be met without raising the price inexorbitantly. For the Roadster, as an example, Morgan used the same Duratec unit found in a Mondeo ST220. A 3.0 litre V6 in a car that weighs as much an LCD will go very fast indeed. It will keep an M3 honest up to 60mph, but your teeth will chatter and you'll have less hair than Kojak if you push much further.

But as I say, unless you want your choice to narrow down to TTs and Boxsters, then cars like these, manufacturers like Morgan, need to be celebrated.