Sitting there on a dirt mound in the middle of nowhere wearing a for sale sign was what I eventually found out to be a 1937 Morgan Super Sports three-wheeler with two of the wheels in front of all things. There was a big ass Matchless V-twin engine mounted sideways between those wheels and I just kept circling and circling this thing until I got the guts to hop in and sit behind the wheel which was mounted on the passenger’s side as far as I was concerned. Why would you want the passenger to drive I wondered unaware of the driving rules of its birthplace in Malvern, England. Everything here was crazy and wrong to my 12-year-old brain, but I didn’t give a damn and dreamed of how many lawns I had to cut to the get the $600 sale price (I’m still saving). All I had for three-wheeled references were kids’ tricycles of the day and I never saw one with more than one wheel up front, so how the hell does this work? As I’ve since found out, very well, thank you.

 

 

 

   Morgan Motor Company was established back in 1910 building trikes to get around England’s tax laws on anything with four wheels, but later the high-performance aspect of Morgan trikes became legendary establishing speed and race records that lasted for decades. Morgan started building four-wheel sports cars alongside the trikes in the late ‘30s with trike production continuing until 1952. But that’s not the end of the story as there’s been a bunch of serious Morgan trike diehards keeping the old ones in good nick and today, Morgan’s back in the trike business with a classic look, high-tech construction, and still powered by a motorcycle engine, the somewhat infamous S&S X-Wedge that’s finally found a good home on three wheels.

 

   Truth be told and it’s probably going to get me in trouble, a reverse trike is the only way to go on three wheels. Other than my first motorcycle ride, I’ve never ever had so much fun driving anything and I’ve spent some serious time on great motorcycles and cars (not mine) from Ferraris to Porsches to Musclecars of all types. Cyclecars, as these were referred to, make you a grinning fool behind the wheel and the same goes for a passenger. In the 1980s, I got a lot of wheel time in a new Morgan replica called the Triking which I think laid the pattern for the new Morgan trike in a roundabout way. I don’t know for a fact, but Pete Larsen of Liberty Motors in Seattle must have also known about the Triking as he started producing a similar trike design called the Ace Cycle-Car powered by a Harley Twin Cam B engine instead of the Triking’s Moto Guzzi engine. He actually did a magnificent job all around and that led hopefully a nice infusion of English cash to his bank account as his design apparently made its way back to Morgan where it was modified a bit to what is the current Morgan three wheeler. 

 

 

  The Morgan three-wheeler re-birth has been a complete success bringing in all sorts of converts to something that people first think should never work and a backlog of orders good for a couple of years. To a family-owned company who marches to a different drummer with its handbuilt three and four wheel vehicles, this is a wonderful surprise. Every car and bike magazine, every TV show, and celebrities like vintage Morgan trike owner Jay Leno who took a ride in the prototype and ordered one on the spot, says it’s fun, fun, fun.

 

 It’s a tight squeeze in and your arms hang a bit out, but once the X-Wedge fires up it’s game on! With every shift of the 5-speed Mazda tranny, the corners of your mouth try and touch your earlobes and beyond. Ten minutes after you get back from your first ride you’ll still be a grinning fool and wondering if this look is permanent. Powerful (115hp/0-60 in 4.5sec!), rock steady, but agile as all hell in corners, decently comfortable, and a sense of speed that sitting at almost go-kart levels can only produce, today’s Morgan is like combining all the Beach Boys car songs you love into one song and then amping that up until you cry and laugh at the same time. Something this fun should be illegal under some ancient Draconian law, but it’s legal in all 50 states as far as I know.

 

  To find out more about Morgan Motor Company’s trike, click on their web site (http://www.morgan3wheeler.co.uk/home.html) and see what’s up in alternate trike world.