Morgan Supersport review

But there is still plenty here to remind you you’re in a Morgan. Your elbows wander around the cabin searching for a comfortable place to rest, the seating position is a touch upright with not enough reach adjustment in the wheel and there’s more wind noise at motorway speeds in here than any other new car I’ve driven, short of Caterhams and Ariels, most of it emanating from the side windows. A different sort of Morgan is still a Morgan.

Even so, I really liked the cabin with its clean, simple dials and bespoke switchgear. Parts bin indicator stalks I don’t mind because I know how expensive such things are to produce, but the flimsy lumps of column-mounted black plastic that serve as (too small) gearshift paddles are a let down. Our test car was fitted with the optional (£4194) hard top, which can be removed to make this a pure open top car, but it’s a fiddly 10-minute process even if you know what you’re doing and so, knowing our limits all too well, we left it in position.

On the subject of options, the total extras bill for this car ran to more than £24,000. The gorgeous 19in Aerolite wheels are £4800, the Dynamic Handling Pack that includes adjustable Nitron suspension another £3000, the Active Sports Exhaust the same, while the Sennheiser Premium Audio system costs £3600 (and is really just an inbuilt Bluetooth speaker for your phone).

Just the roof, wheels and stereo would lift the price of a Supersport to that of a brand new 911 Carrera T. And so, if any meaningful number of buyers are going to forgo one of the great modern sports cars in favour of something knocked together in a Worcestershire shed (if that’s not too impolite), the Supersport is going to have to be quite special to drive.

Let’s dispense with the not so good stuff first. There’s a tautness to the low speed ride you won’t find in a comparable 911 (though it improves enormously with a little speed). The steering is over-assisted and therefore lifeless, while the brake pedal feels overservoed too, given that this is supposed to be a true driver’s car. Lots of Morgans are used for touring and I suspect the sheer amount of wind noise on the motorway, even with the hard top in place, would become tiresome.

And how do you feel about paddleshift-only sports cars? As a former Alpine A110 owner I’ve clearly made my peace with it, but for many people the lack of a manual transmission in what is clearly an occasional use car will be a dealbreaker. The sense I get is that should enough people kick up enough of a stink, Morgan might eventually make a manual available, costly and difficult though that would be. And we only need 100,000 signatures to have it debated in parliament. This car’s open differential (a limited-slip diff is optional) also limits how lively it can feel under power at corner exit. Lastly, there is an ESC Sport mode, a sort of intermediate setting, that still doesn’t give you enough latitude, like it doesn’t quite trust your ability.

Now for the good stuff, and there’s plenty of it. Like the 335bhp turbocharged engine, sourced from BMW, which works brilliantly in a large estate car and better still in a lightweight sports car. There’s a stirring soundtrack, really strong torque, sharp throttle response, a ripping top end – all the stuff you want in a car like this. And while the eight-speed auto won’t be to all tastes, it is very effective.

The steering should offer a better sense of connection but it is at least accurate, so you can place the car with precision. The Supersport feels balanced, there’s massive grip on Michelin Pilot Sport 5 rubber and what messages are lacking from the wheel do at least come flooding at you through the seat – this is not a numb, remote car by any measure.

At a claimed 1170kg at the kerb, the Morgan is 320kg lighter than a 911 Carrera T. An enormous amount. The primary benefit is that the spring, damper and anti-roll bar rates need not be overly stiff, like stone cold modelling clay. They can be tuned to be malleable, which creates one of my favourite sensations in driving, that of a light car on supple suspension, smothering a poor road surface, its body rolling lightly in corners and rising and falling noticeably over crests and undulations, without ever feeling wayward or out of control. A110s and MX-5s do the same thing. In a car like that, expressive and alive, you feel involved, like your inputs at the wheel and on the pedals are really making the difference. Too many modern sports cars lock those sensations away with very tense springing that doesn’t allow the body to move much at all, which in turn makes those cars seem aloof and uninterested in what matters to you.

The upshot is that there is a massive amount of headroom to make a yet more sporting version of this car. Maybe a Supersport R. I have no idea if such a thing is in the works, but I can see how more power, more detailed and perhaps even unassisted steering, a firmer brake pedal, tauter roll bars and springs, more track-focused tyres, an LSD and so on could turn this Morgan into a real road racer. But I’m not convinced it would actually be more fun at remotely sane road speeds. Truth is, I like that this car has approachable limits, that its driver must manage weight transfers and the shifting balance, sometimes allowing it a moment to gather itself.

Take all that away and you’re not having more fun; you’re just going faster.

‘This is an eight-tenths car,’ says my Ti co-founder Andrew, ‘where every other Morgan has been a four-tenths car.’ Again, job done. This is a car you can drive with commitment on the road. You can hustle it, lean on it, chase it like no other Morgan, without going so hard and fast that you’re beginning to take liberties.

Morgan set out to build a Morgan for the keenest drivers. It has done that, and in some style, but it remains to be seen how many of those keen drivers desire a Morgan of any sort.

Photography by Malcolm Griffiths