British Eccentricity on Four Wheels
(or an American discovers why driving a Morgan is an affair of the heart).
by Kirk Kraeutler, New York Times Sunday, August 3, 1997.

I cannot say I wasn't warned.  I was warned, and the warning went something like this: "The worst part of this weekend will be when you have to return the car.  When you're driving a Morgan, you're somebody.  The moment you hand over those keys, you're nobody again."

My friend and I were standing in central London in an alleyway in front of a small garage, one of the few places in England and perhaps the whole world where one can rent a Morgan, the venerable English sports car.  As we surveyed the field, the whole idea seemed inconceivable.  Not so much the renting of the thing, but the driving itself.  Looking at them now, they seemed too beautiful, too delicate, too lilting and lovely to be taken out on the cruel roads of a modern nation, to be driven alongside boorish trucks
and vans and ordinary passenger cars that, by comparison, suddenly seemed as ungainly as ox carts.

Morgans, I was informed, were still handmade.  The original was a three-wheeler built early in the century.  After that, the very classic design evolved and has not been substantially changed since the 1930's. Even now, the frame of the body is ash wood.  Each is made to order, and only about 500 are turned out each year.  To buy one, there is a five year waiting list.  But there they were, a small bevy of Morgans: red, silver, indigo, British racing green, canary yellow.

With the long, languorous curves of the front fender sloping down into a kind of running board, they looked more like perfectly oversized Matchbox race cars than drivable automobiles.  But you could drive them, and they were ours for the picking, for three days, at about $177 a day per car.

That weekend in February was my friend Colin's 30th birthday.  As part of the celebration, he had decided to rent a country house in Wales with a group of friends and supply them with four Morgans, a gesture as telling of his joie de vivre as his generosity.  This was the start of the trip, and my first encounter with the car and English roads.

Something should be said right up front: I know nothing about cars.  An automobile (actually, roadster is probably the proper term) this special could hardly be more wasted, except that I do love to drive.  As the train of us pulled away from the garage and out through the city streets, I have to admit that I was not thinking of the engine's bore and stroke of 80.6-by-88 mm., or even its compression ration of 10:0:1.  All I was thinking was what I repeated to myself softly (over the gentle purr of the exhaust system's cast manifold to stainless steel down pipe): "Keep to the left, keep to the left."

The nice man at the garage had given each of us a dutiful lecture on how to get the canvas top off and on, where to find the windshield wiper switch (where the turn signal usually was) and where to find the turn signal (you guessed it.)  At the time, I thought the tutorial was endearing in its British formality, but entirely superfluous.  I was pretty much fixated on how to work a left-handed shift.  (This was England, remember, --everything was on the wrong side of the car, not just the road.) I followed Colin and the others back to the flat, a 10 minute drive that went off without a hitch, and more important, without a bump, dent or scratch.

They went on to Wales that afternoon, about four hours straight west on the M-4 highway.  I waited back in London for my traveling companion, navigator, and co-pilot -- that is, for my girlfriend, Radhika, who was to arrive directly from New York early the next day. Once there, she immediately poured herself into the Morgan's single passenger seat.  Having a navigator made things much easier.  Suddenly, my
intimidation melted away.  Instead of heading directly to Wales, we stopped in Oxford along the way, got lost, and stopped in Oxford again.  I quickly discovered one of the great hidden advantages of the Morgan: Even if you did drive like a lost tourist, your fellow drivers seemed that much more inclined toward forgiveness.

We took the scenic route west toward mid-Wales, along the M-40, and then a series of two-lane highways.  Jet-lagged from an overnight flight, Radhika found the charm of the Morgan more in its looks than in its creature comforts.  Once she was sure were we were pointed in the right direction, she tried to get some sleep.  After about a half-hour, she opened her eyes and made a simple, horrifying statement.

"I hate this car, " she said.  (I had been afraid of this.)  "How much did this cost to rent?"

"Probably twice as much as a regular car, " I said.

"You mean a regular car that you could sleep in, that had heat, and where we wouldn't have to shout to hear each other?"  It would grow on her, I assured myself, but she would need just a little more time.

As for me, by the time we arrived in Wales, I was already feeling comfortable enough to acknowledge, unashamedly, my unfamiliarity with some of England's more peculiar road signs, and I asked Colin to spare some guidance.

 "What are those numbers inside the little red circle?" I asked.

"That's the speed limit," he said.

I explained that I thought they were road markers or something, because the numbers always seemed far too small.  I think he understood.  This was, after all, the same man who later in the weekend would remark how much driving a Morgan was like playing a video game, only he had to keep reminding himself that he did not have three lives.

Driving up through the hills of Wales was beyond being beautiful and romantic, far more work than I had imagined.  I began to understand what put the sport in sports car.  The steering was so direct, that you were forced to keep your eyes on the road constantly.  It was also so heavy that, after working the car over the winding hills on a country road, my arms were exhausted from pulling the car around the turns while also climbing up and down through the gears.

It was not until were were driving back to London on Monday morning that things got serious.  By now -- although still too timid to get behind the wheel -- Radhika was smitten, and suggested a little spin through the Cotswolds, the quintessential English countryside.  Soon it became clear that we were not returning the car that day.

I made a phone call late that afternoon that began:  "Hi, my name is Kraeutler and I have one of your Morgans."  I would make the same call twice more over the next three days, and it began to sound like a hostage taking.  There were also calls to the airline, postponing the flight home and gladly explaining the reason, even thought no one had asked.  "We've rented this car and can't take it back," Radhika told one friendly ticket agent.  "It's really changed our lives."

We stayed two nights in Stratford-on-Avon, where a Shakepeare play seemed to be required viewing.  I remember discussing whether it would be worth going if we couldn't drive to the theater, which was two blocks away.  We toured the region's old sheep trading towns, sped along narrow country lanes and
drove past the wondrous quilt of farmland neatly sewn together by tree lines and hedgerows.

We bundled up in hats and gloves and took the top down in 40-degree weather and lacy drizzle.  I grew a beard.  We were beginning to understand.  The real mystique of the Morgan lay in its sheer impracticality, which by now seemed to inform every part of our lives.

Finally, the day came that we could put off no longer.  As I (gulp) handed back the keys,  Radhika and I tried to make the moment more bearable by discussing plans to ship a Morgan home. The nice man at the garage seemed perplexed, as though he couldn't quite figure out if we were serious or joking.

But, then, neither could we.

Back on the streets, we tested our legs again, with a wobbliness more appropriate to passengers disembarking a boat.  We waded through the city center in search of food, drink, and solace, all our belongings in a knapsack that seemed to weigh more heavily on my shoulder than it had before.  Then I reminded myself that I was someone after all.  I had Radhika, and we had the memory of having driven a Morgan.