No British brand is as stubborn as Morgan, building basically the same car for many decades, and getting away with it, with lots of love and understanding. A brilliant concept! But even Morgan can’t escape the need to update their cars sometimes. Just not too often… The latest update is for the Morgan Plus Six, currently the brand’s top model. The upgrade is called ‘MY22’, which sounds kind of cool, and is short for Model Year ’22. Morgan is using the American model year system, which is always a year ahead of the production year, hence the 2022 upgrade on a very 2021 car. The update includes new LED front lights, additional fog lights, a newly designed hood, and a new lower-grille. Inside, Morgan improved the seats and added a dual USB port.
Morgan’s are famous for their traditional wooden frames. Not that long ago, the entire frame was made from carefully sculpted planks and sticks. These days, Morgan is modern. To a certain extend. Morgan’s latest ‘CX-Generation’ platform is made mainly of aluminum. Wood is only used for the frame surrounding the cabin. That may not seem that much but the doors, dashboard, and rear panels are still directly attached to the wood. Cleverly, that is exactly where the driver is most likely to smell the stuff, giving him or her that classic British sports car feeling.
The MY22 Morgan Plus Six is powered by a very non-British BMW 3.0 liter twin-turbocharged inline six-cylinder engine. The motor connects to the rear wheels via a paddle-shift operated eight-speed ZF automatic gearbox. Output of the engine is 335 hp and 500 Nm. The Plus Six has a dry weight of only 1,075 kilo, so it has a lot of speed. Acceleration from 0 to 100 is gone in 4.2 seconds and the Morgan tops out at 267 kilometers per hour.
Happily, the brake system has also been updated over time. At the front, the Morgan Plus Six is fitted with ventilated brake discs with a diameter of 315 millimeter and a width of 25.4 millimeter. At the rear, the ventilated brake disc has a 294 millimeter diameter and a 20 millimeter width. At the front, the brake disc is mated to a 4-piston aluminum brake caliper. At the rear, the disc works with a 1-piston caliper. Customers can choose between various caliper colors, including a very racy red as seen on the green car on the photos.
With the latest update, the Morgan Plus Six can continue being eccentric for a little while more. In the meantime, Morgan is developing the next upgrade, expected in 2025 or so. This will be a momentous event where the company is expected to make the switch from purely petrol power to plug-in hybrids only. It is yet unsure if, by then, there will be any wood left behind.