FITTING ANOTHER MORGAN'S USED HARD OR SOFT TOP TO YOUR CAR
by Lorne Goldman 

This is a risky area for buyers. I have never heard of or seen a perfect trad hardtop fit saving an exception for the past tops of David Rutherford, the famous aftermarket suspension guru. But dear Dave is retired and sold his hardtop molds to Matthias Kreyes in Germany. The Factory hard tops awere/are not recommended for fit. 

Secondly, even a perfect hard top made for the car must be re-adjusted and re-furbished regularly. My UK racing friends do so every two years or so. 

This situation also applies to soft tops, though if you have access to a pleasure boat expert, and don't mind some awkward adjustment stitching and patching, you can get by. It is an illusion that Morgans are all the same. There are many windscreen variants. Different heights (for 2 and 4 seaters), different side brackets, a different number of top studs, heated windscreens, unheated windscreen, and so on. The best idea is to ignore everyone and measure your own screen carefully. But even that will in not assure you a decent fit of a top, soft or hard, from another car. Indeed, Morgans tops stretch and Morgan hard tops will only provide a barely adequate seal for a varying period.

One country, the USA, uses 4 seater screens on 2 seater cars from the 1970s. This changes the classic roof line and, of course, the soft top pattern. A 4 seater soft top will sag terribly on a 2 seater and a 2 seater top will not fit a 4 seater car no matter how you try to stretch it. All things go double for a hard top. The head of the wonderful Bill Fink, who was a tall man, would reach over a two seat screen. He told me that a US regs required him to order 4 seater screens for all the Morgan he imported. Easy to see at a glance and changes the aesthetics, at least from 1976. I miss him.

Most moggers are unaware of these issues but there are dealers for whom a sale, ruthlessly, is more important than anything. There is one frequent Morgan forum contributor in North America, on a forum that makes ALL its post5, wrong or right open to the world, a relative newbie with a much altered Morgan who has publicly posted that  "Lorne (aka gomog) has said that some +8s have a shorter windshield, and some have a taller one (yet never actually states the measurement of the windshield heights that were installed, nor will he divulge the height of his own +8s windshield). (originally "refuses"). " 

Of course, this is absurd and gratituously malicious without reason, but ours is no longer a world peopled with a template of good sorts as it used to be. The truth is that any advice someone gives to trad moggers about soft and especially (considering their prices) hard tops. They should not be assumed to be transferable from Morgan to Morgan. Anyone intrigued about having one should carefully measure what they have and what they are buying and, if they choose to, try their luck. Amateurs, like the fellow above or people who listen to them are at high risk, aside from the bad karma they create. I could not say the following on a forum where the dealer-seller attends and sells, and the comment would have been on google in seconds. In fact, the person who perpetrated this slander is a customer of this dealer.