For those who haven't seen this "interesting" Article.
Hope all had a Merry Christmas and ARE/**having a great Boxing Day
[except in London where the
tram drivers /_*JUST*_/*_[@ 130mts ago] _* *_WALKED OFF THE JOB_*,
thereby
*_SHUTTING DOWN _*the subway [and stranding *Thousands* of folks in
downtown London ! ! !/
Ed
********************************************************************************************
-------- Original Message --------
*Submitted by John D. of Springfield, MO*
Morgan Motor Co. has big hopes for M3W in China
Steve Rothwell, Bloomberg News
Sunday, December 25, 2011 (SF Chronicle)
The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2011/12/25/BUTM1MFSF6.DTL
In a red-brick shed at the foot of England's Malvern Hills, Morgan
Motor
Co. is preparing an unusual assault on the growing Chinese auto market.
Managing Director Charles Morgan said the 100-year-old company has
created a model that will stand out from the crowd in Asian showrooms.
That's partly because the M3W is hand-built, wood-framed and based on
a 50-year-old design - and mainly because it has three wheels.
"Try to sell a Ferrari and you're up against Lamborghini, the Audi R8,
Lotus, McLaren," he said. "Send a Morgan three-wheeler there and they'll
know the difference."
Morgan, known for retro designs harking back to the England of local
composer Edward Elgar, is betting on the M3W to spur Asian demand as
slowing economies crimp European and U.S. sales. The company said it
has been approached by 20 potential Chinese dealers this year for the $39K
successor to a series of three-wheel models it stopped making in 1952.
Other top-end automakers are also targeting China, where luxury
sales may
jump 39 percent in 2011 to 939,000, surpassing Germany as the No. 2 market
after the United States, said Jenny Gu, an analyst at research firm LMC
Automotive. British sports-car brand Lotus, a unit of Malaysia's Proton
Holdings Bhd, added its first Beijing dealership in October, even as
Chinese consumer demand is forecast to slow as the economy grows less
quickly.
Founded by Charles Morgan's grandfather, Morgan said the company seeks
to create a sense of "automotive theater" around its models.
"Products that combine design and authenticity are very attractive
to the
connoisseur, and Morgan appeals to somebody who wants those real
materials," Morgan said in an interview at the company's base in Malvern
Link. The family-owned company has chosen to remain a niche manufacturer
and avoided overreaching to chase higher volumes, he said, something that
led to the collapse of other British carmakers.
The M3W, unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March, has just entered
production with a backlog of 800 orders and reaches dealers next year. The
open-top two-seater is powered by a 2-liter Harley Davidson motorcycle
engine made by S&S Cycle Inc. of Wisconsin, and will reach 60 miles per
hour in 4.5 seconds before topping out at 125 mph, all at 50 miles to the
gallon.
Morgan said it is targeting 1,500 deliveries in 2012, half from the
three-wheeler; it said it expects to sell almost 1,000 this year,
including 100 M3Ws. The model joins four-wheeled designs that include
AeroMax, which has a 367 horsepower V8 engine and can reach 170 mph,
and the "Classic" range of 1930s-styled roadsters.
"They're moving a little bit more toward the 21st century while
retaining
an extremely large dose of nostalgia to ensure that their products remain
unique," said Andrew Jackson, an analyst at Datamonitor in London. "It'll
certainly produce an interesting offering for China, where there seems to
be quite an appetite for vehicles with a strong brand identity."
The company will open its first Chinese dealers in Beijing and Shanghai
next year and will also offer the three-wheeler via a Harley Davidson
outlet in Hong Kong with the aim of selling at least 50 cars in the first
year and 150 after three.
The push in emerging economies amounts to a "contingency plan" for
coping with the weakness of traditional markets, with sales slow in the
States and "worse than flat" in Europe, said Morgan, 60, who joined the
firm in 1986, when it was making 450 cars a year, after 10 years as a TV
cameraman specializing in war reports. He succeeded his father Peter as
chief in 1999.
"At least in China and India you know they've got money," he said.
"We've
got a dealer in Greece, but I don't think we've sold a car this year. If
Greece expands into Italy, into Spain, into France, then we've got
problems. Europe is on its knees and anything could happen. People
could just stop buying."
Morgan is also counting on the M3W to spur sales in the United States,
where it will be sold as a motorized tricycle to avoid a car import
license.
The sales pitch to China will play on Morgan's Englishness and
dedication
to traditional craftsmanship.
Ash frames, which the company said are best at absorbing energy,
are built
by carpenters at a site across the road from that founder Henry Frederick
Stanley Morgan established in 1909, a mile from the house where Elgar
wrote the Enigma Variations a decade earlier.
The company contracts tasks it's not expert at, Morgan said, sourcing
engines from Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Ford Motor Co. and gearboxes
from Mazda Motor Corp., as well airbags and brakes from Continental AG and
Robert Bosch GmbH.
"A product like the AeroMax or the three-wheeler has an immediate
visual
appeal," Morgan said. "Some would argue that they're really beautiful. And
unlike most cars that are interesting for six months, when you come back
from paying for the petrol the interest remains."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2011 SF Chronicle
NOTE: There was a picture attached, It may be seen at:
http://www.justbrits.com/morgan/Morgans.jpg
From: Rick Feibusch <rfeibusch1 at gmail.com>
Automotive Historian & Appraiser, So. Cal.
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