Walk through the Morgan factory on Pickersleigh Road in Malvern Link and, somewhere between the modern aluminium platforms and the paint shop, you will smell sawdust. In a wood shop that would not look out of place in a cabinetmaker’s workshop, craftsmen shape lengths of ash and assemble, by hand, the frames around which every Morgan body is built.
It is the most misunderstood detail in British motoring. A Morgan does not have a wooden chassis, and it never has. What it has is something rarer: a coachbuilder’s body frame, made much as coachbuilders made them a century ago.
A Family Firm in the Malvern Hills
Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan, HFS to everyone who has written about him since, founded the company in 1909. His first cars were three-wheelers: light, simple and powered by motorcycle engines. The four-wheeled 4/4 followed in 1936, and the silhouette it established, with its long bonnet, sweeping wings and cockpit set well back, has remained recognisably Morgan ever since.
The company stayed in family hands for more than a century, passing from HFS to his son Peter and then to his grandson Charles. In 2019, the European investment group Investindustrial took a majority stake, with the Morgan family retaining a shareholding and continuing as stewards of the brand. The cars are still built in Malvern.
Why Ash
Morgan has used ash for its body frames for generations, and the reasons are practical rather than sentimental. Ash is light, durable and flexible to work with. It gives the craftsmen a structure to which the hand-formed aluminium body panels can be fitted, preserving a method of construction that has become almost unique in modern carmaking.
The rest of the car has moved with the times. Morgan introduced its CX-Generation bonded-aluminium platform with the Plus Six in 2019, followed by the Plus Four in 2020. Today, the Plus Four continues on that architecture, while the newer Supersport uses its evolved CXV platform. Both are powered by BMW engines. The result is a car that feels thoroughly modern to drive yet is still assembled using skills the men who built Morgan’s early four-wheelers would recognise.
Bespoke by Default
Every Morgan is commissioned individually. Customers can specify colours, leather, stitching and numerous other details, creating combinations that may exist on no other car. The trim shop cuts and sews interiors by hand, while aluminium bodywork is formed over the traditional ash frame. It is coachbuilding in the older, broader sense of the word, the same tradition that Rolls-Royce has spent a decade reviving at the very summit of the market, practised here as a daily habit rather than an event.
The Analogue Argument
As cars become quieter, heavier and more insulated, a Morgan offers something increasingly scarce: the sensation of driving rather than being driven. It is small, light and open to the elements; you feel the road, hear the engine and smell the countryside you are passing through. That quality is precisely what has made older cars so desirable, as we noted in our guide to classic car collecting in 2026. The difference is that a Morgan delivers it new, from the factory, with a warranty.
The factory in the Malvern Hills welcomes visitors, and the tour repays the journey. Few places in Europe show so clearly how old craft and modern engineering can share one building without either apologising for the other. Explore the range and factory tours at the official Morgan Motor Company website.
Featured photo: © Morgan Motor Company
