Morgan Supersport Is a Bold Leap Forward

[Marenda Jaseph]

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For a company as rooted in tradition as Morgan, its latest flagship is surprisingly modern.

Morgan is a company where change is gradual. In the brand's 116-year history, its cars have enjoyed an impressively consistent look and feel. Where many of its competitors ballooned into mass-production automakers, Morgan remained a small outfit producing hand-finished sports cars. Its long-running Plus Four still looks the same as it did in the 1960s, and its frames are still constructed from ash wood, in the same way they have been for decades.

The brand's new flagship Supersport changes things, though. A revised update on classic Morgan design combines with an all-new chassis, a trusty BMW-sourced turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six, and subtly integrated technology. In Morgan's terms, it is a complete overhaul of the brand's vision, dragging it kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
As the replacement for Morgan's previous flagship, the Plus Six, the Supersport's bloodline is a storied one. The Plus Six was in production from 2019 to this year, and it was the successor to the Plus 8. One of Morgan's longest-running and most lauded models, the Plus 8 was a V-8-powered muscle sports car, produced initially from 1968 to 2004 and then again from 2012 to 2018. The Plus 8 originally made use of a Land Rover 3.5-liter V-8 and, upon the car's second run, switched to the BMW 4.8-liter V-8 in 2012.

That British-German partnership continues to this day. The Supersport gets motivation from BMW's silky inline-six. It's the same engine the Plus Six used, and it's a variation of the inline-six utilized in BMW's own Z4 M40i, as well as the Toyota Supra and Ineos Grenadier. It's good for 335 horsepower, helping propel the Supersport to 62 mph in a claimed 3.9 seconds. The B58 bolts to the near-ubiquitous ZF eight-speed automatic transmission, which can glide efficiently through the gears all the way up to 166 mph. It is not stats or headline figures that Morgan trades off, though; the goal here is fun and driver engagement.

It's a common misconception that Morgan uses wood in its chassis. Wood does still play a part in the Supersport's underpinnings, as the frame is made from ash wood that's hand-planed in Morgan's own factory. But the Supersport's CXV bonded aluminum chassis is its most modern yet. It's said to weigh 225 pounds, including the front and rear subframes; Morgan reckons the chassis increases overall torsional rigidity by 10 percent, which is boosted a further 10 percent when the optional hardtop is installed.