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Morgan Announces 'Eco Car' Project Contd...
"If it succeeds, the project could help to solve one of the most challenging tasks facing the modern motor industry: how to keep making cars that are fun and fast while also meeting rapidly growing concerns over damage to the environment," wrote
Sunday London Times.6
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"We accept the problems of climate change and think that it would be irresponsible for any manufacturer not to act," said Charles Morgan, Managing Director of Morgan and project director of LIFEcar.7 Working on a path-breaking project like a new eco-car, required the trial of new, hitherto unexplored ways of working. This could generate a "quantum leap of technological development"8 for Morgan, which had a reputation of sticking to traditional car manufacturing systems. Morgan was the only car manufacturer in the early 21st century that had not been touched by automation and mass production. Even in the early 2000s, the company occupied the same building in which it was set up in the early 1900s and crafted its cars primarily by hand.
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It employed just over 100 people and its annual production was between 500 and 1000 -an infinitesimal number compared to auto giants like General Motors.
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Background Note
In 1910, HFS Morgan, an engineer and former railway draughtsman, assembled a single-seater three-wheel vehicle called the 'Morgan Runabout' at his garage in Malvern Links in the Worcestershire district of England.
The Runabout was powered by a seven horsepower (hp) twin-cylinder Peugeot engine and the chassis was made at the Malvern College workshop by Stephenson Peach, who was then an engineering professor at the Malvern and Repton college. Initially, the Runabout was an experimental project and HFS
Morgan had no plans to market it... |
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