Morgan tricycle close to green light for us

The tricycle is a 1920s revival of the original Morgan.

The quirky British babe has passed three locally-specific crash tests and is on the home stretch in accordance with Australian design rules. More than 250 people are awaiting a verdict after registering for a place on the waiting list, although it will still be the middle of next year before local deliveries begin.

“Now I'm pretty confident. I think we'll get it," Chris van Wyck, Australian sports car agent for Morgan and Caterham, told Carsguide. “The most difficult thing was to pass the crash tests. Now we've cleared the ones that did about 70 percent of the work." “We had to do three different things for different parts of the car in order to comply with the ADR.

Australia should have its own set of rules and that's what we're fighting right now. We don't worry about lights, seat belts and the like. “In Europe and America, it is classified as a motorcycle, so crash tests are not required. But Australia has a special category for tricycles, so a crash test is needed.” 

He projects a likely price for the three-wheeler around $65,000 but says the biggest challenge will be getting the cars, as demand for three-wheelers is more than four times what is expected. “When Morgan announced the car in March 2011, they were talking about 200 cars a year, but they ended up getting 900 prepaid orders.

They were completely overwhelmed and that was before they shipped the car to America,” says van Wyck. “Now they are building cars as fast as they can.” The tricycle is a 1920s revival of the original Morgan, powered by the 2L S&S V-twin engine commonly found in custom Harley Davidson motorcycles.

There are plenty of customization options, including livery that mimics the Spitfire from World War II. Fans of the car is the legend of the American talk show Jay Leno. The price will be between $60,000 and $70,000, though van Wyck says it depends on the exchange rate and the final certification cost. He says getting the three-wheeler approved for Australia is an uphill battle.

“We've been working on this for over a year. In fact, we started as soon as we heard about it in March 2011. First, we needed to learn the rules.” But he says that there is a huge interest from a huge circle of people. “We are talking about the leaders of large companies on the one hand. A lot of riders seem to fall too often and bounce badly,” he laughs. Of the first 20 inquiries, 17 were the current owners of Morgan, but since then they have all been new faces. 

"This is completely unprecedented in my 12 years with Morgan." Morgan is tiny in Australia and will deliver less than 20 of its old-fashioned sports cars this year, although van Wyck also plans to donate some local Caterham sports cars. “This is a very specialized boutique market. Last year we did 20 Morgans and none with Caterham. This year I expect 18 Morgans and four Caterhams,” he says.