Morgan 3 Wheeler long-term test review: first report

Morgan’s James Gilbert talks me through the car. The 3 Wheeler has changed perceptibly from the early model we road tested in 2012. The fit and finish is now superb, helped by a real sense of nattiness and charm in everything you can touch and toggle.

Our optional extras have been judiciously selected, highlights being a lock box in the footwell (essential for valuables), a smaller-than-standard Alcantara-clad steering wheel and two dinky switches for the heated seats (also essential, given the lack of a heater). What we haven’t gone for is a taller wraparound windscreen, opting instead for the modest eyeball protection of the original wind deflectors.

Gilbert offers us the loan of a lid for the 125-mile return trip, a suggestion I bat away with the cocksureness of a fighter ace being offered a cushion for the seat of his Spitfire. Not five minutes from the non-existent gate, I realise I’ve made the wrong call. But by then I’m too wrapped up in the business of recalibrating my legs and arms to work a car as tiny and as nakedly mechanical as this.

Clearly, there’s no adjusting the seat; instead, the pedal box moves. Or it will do if you’ve got a spanner set and 20 minutes to spare. Impatient to have a go, I opt to leave the pedals where they are (apparently midway between Frodo Baggins and Treebeard) and then promptly regret that too when I remember that there’s nowhere to rest your left foot in the tiny footwell apart from on the clutch pedal.

But none of this seems to matter, so uncanny and charismatic is the driving experience from behind the gorgeous S&S pushrod V-twin. With only 27 miles on the clock, the engine is as tight as a drum, and I’ve been warned not to exceed 3800rpm for the first few hours at least. I adhere to this rigidly, reminded endlessly that the rate of progress has almost nothing to do with relative enjoyment.

Instead, this materialises in the bob of the skinny front tyres, the consistency of the ride quality and the ship’s tiller eloquence of the steering wheel. It’s elemental, evocative stuff, as easy to gulp down as IPA and almost as refreshing, with the weather in Corfu mode and the Malvern Hills melting into the chocolate box lid of the Cotswolds.

By Swindon, though, I can’t feel my face, both eardrums are broken and either arm could be passably served up as medium rare. The airflow at 70mph is massive and the noise phenomenal; both register at Ariel Atom levels, which is a notch below opening the window on a space capsule during launch.

When Stan offers to swap at Membury services, I can barely hide my glee at landing in our Skoda Superb’s refrigerated, cathedralsized cabin. So the 3 Wheeler is possibly not for long journeys – but neither was my long-term Caterham Seven, and I loved that like it were a product of my loins. The Morgan has exactly the same staggering early promise, except it looks better and I fit in it even worse. The next three months ought to be a hoot.