The sparks fly as we head down some of the country’s best driving roads with Britain’s 8 heirloom and Germany’s £37,000 ragtop technocrat. Two more diverse ways to have fun with the top down surely do not exist but, as Andrew Frankel reports, the most important thing is what binds this rather unusual couple together – Autocar
Forget appearances, the vast price difference and the chalk and cheese chasm in technical detail: Britain’s belt and braces Morgan +8 and Germany’s computer literate BMW M3 convertible do the same job. And you know it the first time you drop their tops and aim them down a favourite road on a sunny morning. It’s not just that either blasts to 60 in six wind-in-their-hair seconds or less, it’s that both offer an unforgettable drive. But what conclusively different cars they are.
This is indeed a prizefight with a difference: the Morgan, hairy-chested and with the support of the crowd, facing a car trained by science and the racetrack to the peak of physical fitness. The battleground: The Lake District and the Yorkshire Moors….and the sort of roads for which both cars were born.
In the whole of motoring there are surely not two more opposed routes to what is ultimately the same result. The Morgan gets its punch from the old and ubiquitous pushrod Rover 3528cc V8. It produces 190bhp at 5300rpm and 220lb ft of torque at 4000rpm. When this kind of power is dropped into a car weighing a little more than 200lb, shattering performance is guaranteed.
With sliding pillar front suspension and a live rear axle located by leaf springs – ye gods, even lever arm dampers – the Morgan’s suspension is pure pre-war. The car costs £17,703 and you will have to wait up to four years for delivery.
The BMW’s 2302cc four-cylinder engine has twice as many valves per cylinder, operated by two overhead camshafts. The engine is unique to the M3 and was designed primarily as a racing unit. In roadgoing tune it develops 200bhp at 6750rpm and 177lb ft torque at 4750rpm.
Suspension sounds identical to that of any other 3-Series: MacPherson struts up front, semi-trailing arms at the back, coil springs and telescopic dampers all round. But BMW Motorsport has been to work here. With a combination of fine tuning and geometry revisions it has produced a chassis of rare quality.
BMW GB charges a ridiculous £37,250 for the M3 convertible. Only 40 left-hand-drive cars are being imported this year.
Straight-line performance in either car is sensational but the Morgan is the quicker. It can reach 60mph in just 5.6secs and up to 100mph in 16.4secs. Above 120mph the German’s vastly superior aerodynamics mean the BMW can start to regain lost ground and pull away from the Morgan. In the gears, too, the Morgan is quicker. Between 50-70mph in fourth the car accelerates in 5.1secs, and in fifth 7.6secs; the BMW requires 6.4 and 9.5secs. It is only on top speed that the Morgan has to give best. Its 122mph cannot live with the BMW’s 144mph.
Driving the cars on public roads shows this performance gap to be even wider than the figures suggest. For much of our two day jaunt the Morgan was simply held up by BMW, at least on straight roads. One event illustrates the point: overtaking a column of dawdling traffic, I dropped the BMW down from fourth to third and powered past on full throttle. The Morgan came too, but requiring neither a gearchange nor a foot on the floor.
It may seem hard to believe that Rover’s ageing pushrod V8 could be a more effective engine than the multi-valve marvel produced by BMW Motorsport, but in these cars there is not contest. First there is the Morgan’s torque. Even with very high gearing – 27.6mph/1000rpm in top – it will pull cleanly from walking pace in any gear. It will continue to deliver a flood of power to the 5500rpm limit we imposed, with no ‘coming onto the cam’ or fall off the power at high revs – it delivers its performance in one clean, solid shove. Then there is the noise. A classic V8 burble at low revs, rising to a deep-chested roar as it is extended. The effect is inspiring.
Taken in isolation, the BMW four is a great engine. It has a tremendously successful track record and in road trim it combines its power with a quality edge that the V8 lacks. But still there are racing traits: below 4000rpm, for instance, there is not much urge. Above this is unleashes its power and the rev-counter will charge to the limiter at 7400rpm with superb response. So you have to work at the BMW, with frequent gearchanges the key to keeping it on the boil Fail to do this and the power disappears from under your feet.
There is not the engine music either. The engine sounds less distinguished than that of a Golf GTI up to 5000rpm and there’s some roughness too – certainly it’s not as smooth as any BMW six cylinder unit. After 5000rpm it issues a mechanical howl to remind you of its racing aspirations, but still it does not seduce like the Morgan.
The BMW waits until the corners before it seduces you. The M3 has as good a claim as any to having the most competent and entertaining front-engined chassis in production. Remarkably, the convertible has lost none of the saloon’s ability. Turn-in is sharp and the grip from the 225-section Michelin MXX tyres is of the very highest order.
The convertible will understeer or oversteer on demand, but its basic cornering stance is one of strong neutrality. Push on harder and it just feels better and better, neutral cornering balance eventually giving way to mild, benign oversteer. The steering, so full of feel, lest you keep the front wheels pointing in the desired direction, without drastic correction, and the car follows this line faithfully. It has no hidden vices, no ghastly secrets.
Driving the same road in the Morgan induces acute culture shock. Grip is not the problem if the road is smooth. With only 2000lb to persuade a change direction, the 205-section Uniroyals allow the +8 to be hustled through well-surfaced corners at a cracking pace. Put it on the pockmarked B roads of the Lake District and the story is very different. The car hops wholesale across the road as soon as look at a bump. The ride is truly appalling.
And the otherwise dead steering can generate the sort of kickback that wrenches the wheel from your hands. You drive this car from the seat of your pants. Do this, and it is not without its reward. Fight the steering, kill the heavy understeer with a bootful of throttle, be ready to catch the inevitable tail slide and you will have one of the most invigorating rides this side of a rollercoaster. Despite the dead steering, the Morgan can be placed accurately, but it takes practice.
On the practical side, the BMW is streets ahead, and Morgan wouldn’t have it any other way. Hood up in the M3 you could be in a saloon up to about 70mph. Engine noise is prominent, and there is a distant rumble from the fat Michelins, but wind roar, though audible at motorway speeds, is very well suppressed.
The refinement is heightened by heated leather seats which are comfortable and supportive. With comforts like these the worries of left-hand-drive soon disappear.
Driving the Morgan roof-up on the motorway is not recommended. The tall gearing keeps engine noise to a minimum but since the wind drowns any attempt to hear anything, it’s rather academic. The wind causes the hood to billow skywards – creating some much needed headroom – and assaulting you from every hole in the ill-fitting side-screens.
The Morgan does do some practical jobs surprisingly well. The seats are comfortable even if the ride is not. The two-stage heater keeps you warm in freezing conditions. The driving position is not terrible, even if it is short on leg room. However, none of this can make the car anything but fatiguing to drive in less than ideal conditions.
The M3 convertible is the only BMW to come with an electric hood. Raising or lowering it is a simple matter of pulling two levers and pressing a button. The mechanism required to achieve a taut cover that is both water and air tight is not to be underestimated. The hood has to go through a complex range of manoeuvres, all of which are achieved with absolute millimetre-perfect precision.
The Morgan has a typically belt and braces hood. A skeleton frame provides the basic shape. You have to hang the hood over it and clip it to the top of the windscreen and the back of the car, having already screwed on the sidescreens. The job could conceivably be done inside five minutes. Unfortunately our time with the car was spent in freezing conditions with a howling gale, when the job becomes nigh on impossible.
Both cars are beautifully built. Scuttle-shake, which can reduce a sound saloon into a rattling undesirable, is only apparent in the BMW on badly broken surfaces. Paintwork is deep and lustrous, and body panels fit tightly and evenly.
If anything, the Morgan is more impressive. The test car was Morgan’s demonstrator and even after 40,000 miles of the suspension trying to shake the car to pieces is still felt and looked like new, save for the odd stone chip. Drive one and you will know that this is no mean achievement.
The BMW teaches lessons you never forget. It extends the boundaries which the comprised structure of a convertible has previously had to observe. It is fast and flattering, and as practical a drop top as anyone could wish.
Still, there is something not quite right about this car. It’s partly in the price. A 325i convertible costs £17,000 less. A saloon M3 is nearly £14,000 cheaper. This cannot be justified by leather seats and an electric hood. The car seems to have been conceived as a money-making exercise.
The Morgan has no such problems. Apart from straight-line speed, it is not match for the BMW and now, perhaps, would it want to be. What it offers is an unrivalled tactile experience. You can get out of the BMW, unruffled, after a hard blast down a fell road and marvel at the car’s ability. Do the same in the Morgan and you get out with a real sense of achievement.
Then there is the way the car looks. Beside the Morgan the BMW, for all its flared arches and spoilers, looks anonymous. The Morgan looks classically beautifully. It has a hint of fragility that makes you want to look after it. For all the money it costs, the BMW is much less of an individual.
The Morgan has only one real problem. It is pointless driving it in anything other than ideal conditions. The car’s comprehensive inability to transport its occupants for long distances in anything but severe discomfort is something that only the most die-hard nut will discount. But when the roads are dry and the sun shines, you cannot have too much of it. The Morgan ladles out fun like the BMW never could.
The essence of it is that in the BMW you enjoy the car, while in the Morgan you enjoy yourself.
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September 7, 2009
1986 - 1989, Articles