Competition

Greg Bibby With Bill Tuer,
Chas Reynolds, Dave Hughes & Friends.

Right from the very beginnings of Morgan manufacture, HFS Morgan used competition success to publicise and sell the Morgan Three Wheeler. Initially the Morgan factory entered cars in all kinds of competitive events. Very soon the Morgan appealed to the private buyer as an ideal trials or racing car as well as a practical mode of transport in the days when it was rare to arrive at a meeting in anything other than the vehicle in which one was competing.

The Morgan Three Wheeler Club, founded in 1945, ran competition events from the early 1950s. The main event was a quarter mile sprint which was held mainly in the Midlands at a variety of venues. Other popular events included the High Speed Trials held annually at Silverstone by the Motor Cycling Club. This event attracted road equipped trikes, mainly standard, but sometimes with modifications such as lowered, widened chassis to improve handling and twin carburetor to enhance performance.

Into the 1960s and Morgans began to appear at a number of events, mainly those organised by the Vincent Owners Club and the Vintage Motorcycle Club. Interest in restoring Morgans with competition in mind took off and the Club introduced a Sporting Formula. In its early days the Formula was seen as being important to ensure that owners were not tempted to fit ‘modern’ bodies and wheels in their search for speed, but to modify them in line with the way that they were raced in the 1920s and 30s. the Formula also divided cars into road-going and racing.
The current Morgan competition scene is both active and varied. A hard core of stalwarts still enter the classic trials, such as the Exeter and the Lands End and the club organises an annual Night Rally or ‘Night Trial’ as it is traditionally called. Numerically speaking, it is the track racing scene that attracts most interest currently. Straight line quarter mile sprints are still run with the club taking advantage of the generosity of organising clubs such as the National Sprint Association or the Sprint Section of the Vintage Motor Cycle Club. However the main interest is in circuit racing events and hill climbs which, by ACU definition include twisty sprints that are not necessarily hilly.

In 1996, the Morgan Three Wheeler Club Competition Secretary approached Peter Morgan of the Morgan Motor Company to inquire if he would be interested in sponsoring a series to be known as The Morgan Motor Company Challenge series and the rest is history. Morganeers old and new responded with the kind of spirit that existed some 30 years ago. The series goes from strength to strength and with an ever increasing list of challengers the field promises to be fuller than ever.

The 2008 season includes six carefully chosen events which count for points in the Challenge series. They are four circuit races, a traditional hill climb and a twisty sprint. There are three classes and points are scored for wins and places in each class, so there is as much chance for the ‘as produced by the factory’ car as for the highly developed racers.

A taster of Morgan racing can be seen in the racing Photo Galleries and the Morgan Challenge events are listed on the Calendar page. In addition to these events, Morgan Three Wheelers are invited to many other events, both for cars and motorcycle events.

The regulations for the various Morgan classes can be downloaded as a pdf file here