Somewhere along the line, cars lost their way.
It’s 2026, and they are bigger, heavier, more powerful and more technologically advanced than ever. This isn’t a good thing. Today you can buy a 1,000bhp family SUV, with a series of giant screens that can play YouTube and FaceTime your aunt in Australia. It will park for you and ‘ding’ every time you trickle over the speed limit. It will likely be electric, weigh nearly three tonnes and cost upwards of £100,000.
It’s not just SUVs that have gotten out of hand. Most sports cars are simply too big and heavy for proper, enjoyable driving. There’s that famous Colin Chapman quote, ‘simplify, then add lightness’. Today, it seems the opposite is true. Companies endeavor to ‘complicate, then add weight’.
Morgan didn't get the memo. This British company has been quietly hand-building its sports cars in Malvern since 1909. They are small, lightweight, analogue machines, without distracting touch screens and plastic body panels. Designed for driving first and foremost, they are built the old fashioned way; its current workshop has been in operation since 1918, with its workers still hand-beating body panels and carving wooden frames as they have for decades. It might now be majority owned by an Italian investment group, but Morgan is distinctly old school and proudly British.
‘Every car is coach-built in Malvern, with a significant amount of the work carried out by hand’, says a spokesperson for Morgan. ‘More than 90% of the parts used across our cars are sourced from within the UK, with more than half coming from the Midlands. Just as importantly, there is a continuity of skills and knowledge here. Craftsmen and women work alongside designers and engineers, passing specialist techniques between generations while continuing to develop them. Morgan is a global company, but that concentration of design, engineering, craft and manufacturing in Britain remains central to who we are.’ Walk through the orange brick walls of its Edwardian workshops and you’ll notice there is no hint of AI or autonomous robots. As a result, its lineup of cars looks like it hasn’t changed since the 1950s.
This is certainly the case outside the Bergen Børs hotel, a grand 19th century former stock exchange building in Norway’s second largest city. There are brand new Plus Fours, as well as the Supersports, Morgan’s latest and most advanced model. The unmistakable burble of a V8 idles gently under the bonnet of an early 2000s Plus Eight, a time when its engines were bought in from Rover. A retro futurist Aero 8 comes to life with its own V8 growl, while a British Racing Green 4/4 looks elegant with its longer silhouette designed to house two small adults, or more realistically, extra luggage, in the back.
I am here for Morgan Explores Norway, a four day drive through west Norway, which will take in the finest roads, landscapes and hospitality this part of the country has to offer. It’s one of a series of trips Morgan organises, with previous destinations including the Dolomites, the Pyrenees and Scotland, allowing enthusiasts to enjoy the view from behind their own Morgan or one rented from the company. For Norway, I am joining owners from across the world who have arrived in their pride-and-joys, spoked wheels and chrome bumpers gleaming in the early sub-Arctic sun.
My car for the week is a 2026 Plus Four. Finished in a dashing shade of Alpine Bleu Paon, it too looks right at home on the cobblestone streets of Bergen. Its wheels aren’t spoked; rather they are silver painted alloys inspired by the steel wheels found on the Jaguar D-Type, giving it a purposeful, sporty stance. Its familiar long louvred bonnet and extended side wings look straight out of the 1950s, while the round front LED lights cleverly integrate the indicators and side lights, giving a subtle minimal update on the classic Morgan front end.
Like all Morgans, it’s the kind of car that stops people in its tracks. I am reliably told by more than one owner that the first question people ask them is ‘what is it?’, quickly followed by ‘how old is it?’. I later find this out myself, with my interrogator stunned when I tell them it is brand new.
The Plus Four isn’t made to be just looked at. It’s been designed as a driver’s car, without any of the technological inconveniences that plague more mass-produced machinery. Because it’s built to low numbers, it doesn’t have lane assist or speed limit warnings like many of its competitors. Meanwhile its low slung driving position and outstanding visibility immediately inspire confidence, so anticipation builds as we leave the city.
Getting onto bigger open roads, the Morgan comes into its own. Its precise steering allows you to place the car accurately through a long sweeping bend, with the car’s small body meaning you can play around with different lines. ‘We deliberately prioritise lightweight construction, feedback and connection rather than simply pursuing headline performance figures’, says the Morgan spokesperson. ‘The Plus Four’s strength is the purity and familiarity of the traditional Morgan sports-car proposition. It retains a particular lightness, simplicity and immediacy that are enormously important to us.’ While electronically assisted, the handling has plenty of feel, bolstering the Plus Four’s analogue approach. Furthering this is the beautifully designed cabin, complete with old school dials, smooth wooden detailing and not a touchscreen in sight. The only downside is the gear selector and plastic paddles behind the wheel.
While you can spec a Plus Four in manual for the full analogue experience, mine is automatic, featuring the well regarded eight-speed ZF gearbox. This is paired with a BMW 2.0-litre turbocharged inline-four engine, which produces 255bhp, helping the car hit 60mph from standstill in 4.8 seconds.
This doesn’t seem especially quick when you compare it to the pace of some aforementioned SUVs, but as it weighs only 1,040kg, it is seriously agile and fun. It doesn’t try to overwhelm you with straight line pace; rather its lightweight character makes each journey exciting. ‘You're not isolated from the driving [like other new cars]’, says Dennis Glavis, managing director of Morgan West in Santa Monica, who is participating in the drive. ‘Even though it's got power steering, it's so light and nimble that you know exactly what the car is doing. It's got that connection that a lot of new cars don’t.’
This is especially true around the fjords surrounding Sandane and Øye and on one of Norway’s most famous roads, the Trollstigen, or ‘Troll’s Ladder’. A picturesque mountain pass, it took 20 years to carve the road into the jagged landscape, beginning in 1916, when other parts of Europe were at war. The full road, with its 11 hairpins and 9% incline wasn’t finished until 1936, by which point cars were significantly more advanced. While too tight to be a true driver’s road, the Morgan makes light work of the twists and turns, careering around each hairpin like it’s on rails. Accelerate out of each corner and hear the whooshing of the turbo and feel the wind in your hair. Don’t forget to take your eyes off the road for a second to admire the Stigfossen waterfall plunging alongside you.
The Morgan is part driver’s car, part vessel for exploration. It’s not dissimilar to a motorcycle in that sense; drive one and you are exposed to the elements in the same way. It’s this sense of adventure and the resulting camaraderie that clients enjoy, both about these trips and wider Morgan ownership. ‘A car that's fun to drive attracts a certain clientele and personalities’, says Brian Lewis, a Morgan owner from the USA on the trip. ‘If it was a high-performance race car, the people would be different. But this is a very fun, generous group, and after every trip we talk about where we’ll go again.’
‘We did the Dolomites, the Pyrenees, and came straight from Morgan Explores Scotland to Norway for this’, said his partner Marlene. ‘I enjoy the people that you meet and their stories. What I really loved is all the people on the side of the road watching these cars go down in all these different colours, smiling and waving.’
For others, it’s the history and image that appeals. ‘It's the soul and the heritage’, says Christian Hallan, lifelong Morgan enthusiast and former dealer. ’It's handmade, still in the same production facilities as it's been since 1919. It's unique that they have survived, and also that it's socially accepted everywhere. You turn up somewhere in a brand new Morgan and everybody thinks, "Oh, you have restored a nice old car”, when in fact it’s the opposite.'
That’s one of the interesting things about new Morgans. They might look vintage, but they aren’t complete luddites. There’s the engine and gearbox, which are decidedly modern, powerful and efficient. There’s double wishbone suspension, a setup still used in Formula 1, and the aforementioned electric steering. A bonded lightweight aluminium chassis keeps weight down, while interior luxuries include heated seats and a bluetooth stereo.
The latest model, the Supersport 400, even has serious performance, with 400bhp from its BMW 3.0-litre turbo inline-six. These combine with fancy adjustable Nitron dampers for proper track ability and a power-to-weight ratio similar to a Porsche 911 GTS RS. That’s possible because it only weighs 1,170kg. The Supersport is the most advanced car to ever leave Malvern, but at heart it’s still a simple, lightweight British sports car.
In some ways a Morgan is the antithesis to modern car ownership. In buying one you are compromising slightly, whether on all-out comfort, luggage space or tech. But that is precisely the appeal. They offer something that is lost on other new cars — fun. And that’s true whether you’re traversing Norway’s Atlantic Ocean Road or the B roads of Kent.