In a further effort to cheer on the keepers of Morgans in cyberspace, here
is another story that starts in Detroit!
When I graduated from Purdue in 1963, I had about 8 months before entering
the Army. I went home to Detroit and a job and went looking for a British
sports car to replace my '55 Buick Special. I found a beutiful yellow TF in
wonderful condition but the bank said it was too old to lend money on. I
therefore bought a black '58 TR-3 and had a wonderful summer...except for
the time I went off the road, hit an embankment and nearly totalled the car.
Fortunately, my insurance fixed the car and me and I eventually packed all
my belongings into it, including a guitar, and drove off to Ft. Belvoir, VA.
The Army shipped the TR to Germany and I had a lot of fun driving it on the
kind of roads it was meant for...until I went off one and hit an embankment.
The car wasn't badly injured this time, but there did seem to be some sort
of a pattern developing. When the engine quit, I sold it to a friend who had
rolled his TR-3. I then bought the first of a series of Volkswagens,
culminating in a brand new 1966 Type II Fastback.
Incidently, one of my Beetles was smashed by a railway engine. I was kind of
proud as it was a steam engine and there weren't a lot of them around by then.
I returned home in '66, got a job, and started art school part-time at Wayne
State University. My sister finished graduate school and bought a nice MGB.
It brought back all sorts of good memories and almost none of embankments so
I started reading the want ads.
The first ad that I answered was for a '65 +4 2-seater. While driving it
around, I asked the owner (who was also a grad student at Wayne) why he was
selling. He rambled on a bit about weather protection and luggage space and
then said, "Oh hell, it's my wife". She couldn't stand the thing. I then
quietly asked if they would be intersted in a Type II. They were, although I
had to give them an extra $200.
I drove the Morgan to work and school during the riots of 1967, feeling very
vulnerable but never threatened. Nearly everyone likes Morgans.
I met my future wife while cleaning silk-screens in the basement of the art
school. She liked the Morgan. Our honeymoon was a six-week trip to San
Francisco in it, camping out all the way in places like Yellowstone and the
Black Hills.
We started our business in San Francisco and tried to sell the car before we
moved backed to the family farm in Indiana. Fortunately, we couldn't find a
buyer with cash and we eventually realized that it was too important to us
to sell. Our business was and is the making of paper by hand, something at
least as strange and anachronistic as making sports cars by hand
(www.twinrocker.com). No one was making paper by hand in the U.S. in 1971
and everyone tried to talk us out of it. The example of the Morgan company
gave us the courage to carry on. Last summer, my wife and finally I managed
to visit the Works and personally thank Peter and Charles for carrying on.
The Morgan hasn't run since 1987, frame rot was overtaking it and I thought
it would be a good idea to park it for a year or so until I could get around
to work on it. Last year, Kathryn asked me if we would ever ride in it
again. That got the ball rolling, the body and frame have been repaired and
repainted, the front suspension has been rebuilt and reinstalled and the 7HA
is next.
We are still married and we still have the Morgan and there must be a moral
there. It probably also has something to do with the fact that I haven't hit
an embankment or a train since 1965.
Howard Clark e-mail: hclark@dcwi.com
P.O. Box 413 phone: 317-563-3210
Brookston, IN 47923
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