Morgan Plus Four review

The way it rides bumps, hangs together in the corners and has a solidity to it - despite weighing a whisker over a tonne – is most un-Morgan. Fortunately the bodywork is still supported by a handmade ash frame, most of the bodywork is hand-rolled and beaten aluminium, the interior hand-stitched leather… and its styling remains reassuringly Biggles-friendly, so all is still right with the world.

Frankly, you can forget all those numbers mentioned earlier, they’re totally irrelevant. This is a character car, a feelgood chariot, whose success should be measured in how hard you’re grinning and how many friendly waves you accrue, not the stopwatch.

Manual or auto?

We’ve driven both and would go for the manual every time. The auto works fine – although it surges the shifts at low speeds – and the quickness of those shifts (and the shortness of its eight ratios) lends it an occasionally disconcerting turn of speed. But it feels like an interloper, from the BMW gear selector that jars with the rest of the cabin to the plasticky paddles behind the wheel. Far better to chuck around the stubby, short-throw lever, match revs to biting points and revel in properly operating a car that looks like it should have a manual crank handle in its nose.

It’s a bit slower, then?

By more than its 0.4 seconds gap to 62mph suggests, yes. It's a loooong-geared 'box which does at least mean our long-term test car regularly touched 50mpg. Which is worth more than you'd think, given the fuel tank is quite titchy. But actually a more modest pace is what you want here. While this chassis is a big step on by Morgan's standards, it's still a good way off a Boxster. Calming things down with the more languid manual feels right.

Is the engine a good ‘un?

Admittedly, two litres and four cylinders isn’t much to get excited about in a £74k sports car. It sounds flat and bland on start-up and at low speeds, but press the S+ button for sport mode and a different side is revealed. It’s also a loudmouth, booming on throttle, turbo hissing away and muffled pops when you lift off.

Nothing particularly melodic going on here, but with barely a tonne to push along it’s a potent force. You don’t need to go any faster than this in a Morgan: there’s more performance than you can realistically use on a B-road, more than the chassis appears entirely capable of dealing with.

And how is that chassis?

It remains an acquired taste. Although the CX’s structural rigidity has massively reduced scuttle shake, the back axle still has a fair amount of shimmer and shake on any surface more pockmarked than a billiard table. The front end is pretty accurate and together, it’s just that the steering doesn’t have a great deal of feel, but it’s fair to say that it can surprise people with its turn of speed cross country as much as in a straight line. Just a shame the engine’s wide, smooth powerband isn’t backed up by real charisma.