Plenty of automakers make retro-modern vehicles that combine an old-school ethos with modern technology. But none of them do it quite like Morgan Motor Co., which was retro before retro was a thing.
The quintessentially British automaker keeps one foot firmly in the past, hand-building absolutely gorgeous cars straight out of the 1940s. It was founded by Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan in 1910, and to celebrate the centenary of its factory on Pickersleigh Road in Malvern, Morgan is building the Plus 8 Speedster. Think of it as an enthusiast driver's antidote to the self-shifting, self-correcting and self-driving cars of today.
The Speedster is a sleeker, sportier version of the already sporty Plus 8, a model that has been synonymous with Morgan since the 1960s. The two cars share the same drivetrain, with propulsion coming from a 367-horsepower 4.8-litre V8 provided by BMW. You have your choice of a 6-speed manual, which, like Morgan, is something of an anachronism these days, or an automatic. It goes from zero to 62 mph in 4.2 seconds and hits a governed top speed of 148 mph.
The only thing keeping us from getting one when they go on sale this summer is the price: £69,995, or just over $117,486. Morgan didn't release any further details or pics, but promised to have more info soon.
