Garage owner and keen early automobilist Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan, the son of a rural English clergyman, built his first car, an eponymous prototype, in 1909. To the surprise of many, his concept of a tiny car with three wheels and a small, motorcycle-derived, two-cylinder engine succeeded, with the young garagist founding the Morgan Motor Company in Malvern, in Worcestershire’s hill country, and proceeding to build an improved production version in 1912.
When tax breaks for three-wheelers were curtailed, a 4/4 model—the name denoting its four wheels and four-cylinder engine—was launched. Retaining the three-wheeler’s unique sliding-pillar front suspension, the 4/4 was steadily, if modestly, updated through the years. It retained its rakishly handsome 1930s style and old-time construction method—hand-beaten metal body panels laid upon a frame made of ash wood, the lot then placed on top of a spindly, steel-ladder frame.
