Morgan Celebrates the 4/4's Jubliee Year

Morgan Motor Company has unveiled a commemorative 4/4 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the introduction of the firm's first four wheel, four cylinder vehicle. Until 1937, Morgans were three-wheeled affairs powered by two cylinder air cooled engines.

Official Morgan Photo

From the official Morgan press release:

"Today Morgan Motor Company announced the specification for the latest Morgan Four Four offering. Created to honour the 75th anniversary of the iconic Morgan 4/4, the Anniversary edition will be produced as a limited run special. Morgan Motor Company state that the 75th Anniversary combines “the low size and weight benefits of the entry level 4/4 with the power train from the larger more powerful Morgan Plus 4. A carefully selected set of standard options, with additional unique body graphics, completes arguably the best standard combination of body, engine and aesthetic in the Morgan Classic range.” This new Morgan 4/4 Sports car is being offered in 3 colours: Sport Black, Sport Red and Old English White. All come with black perforated leather interior, carpets, hood and wheels. The dashboard is polished Tawny ash and a Mota Lita wheel is standard. The combination of the Ford sourced 2.0 engine from the Classic Plus 4 and the narrow wings of the standard 4/4 should make for a very spirited drive.

The car is available for £38,750 (Approx US$60,000) + on the road charges from Morgan Motor Company and their associated dealers".

At present it is unclear whether it will be offered in the US.  

MGs in the Constabulary

I found this gem of an old advert at the MG Owners Holland website. I've written about police service MGs before but I've never seen an ad touting the connection. This obviously pre-war ad proudly notes that 33 police departments chose MGs.  I'm not sure what models these are, but they may be NAs. Any positive identification would be appreciated.

Merry Christmas from Positive Earth!

Hubcap Tree by Champion Auto Sales, Arundel, Maine via the Hemmings Blog

 To all of you who frequent this humble blog, may I take this opportunity to wish you a most joyous Christmas and a prosperous New Year.  

Gamers, Geeks and Nerds

The Internet owes a great deal to the thousands of hobbyists, volunteers and basement dwellers that obsessively gather and catalog the information that many of us have come to rely on. Some of it is very good while some is not so much. One crowd-sourced web site I've written about in these humble scribblings is the Internet Movie Car Database. This monumental consumer of time lists movies from around the world along with screenshots of the cars that appeared in them. It is a snap to enter the name of the film and see a list of cars that can be seen in it, or enter your favorite marque and look at the list of films. 

 A recent offshoot of the IMCDb is the Internet Game Cars Database, where (you guessed it) the same treatment is given the world of cars in video games. It's still a work in progress, but it offers the same database search capability as the movie database. 

Now if I could only figure out how to get the Jaguar E-Type prize car in Gran Turismo 4, I'd be a happy boy.  

SABCC Christmas Lunch & Awards Ceremony

Outgoing Prez Noel Eagleson (left) with Membership VP Jack Ross

South Alabama British Car Club wrapped up their 21st year with the final event on the club calendar; the annual Christmas party and awards presentation. This year, the club returned to The Spot of Tea breakfast/brunch establishment on Cathedral Square in Downtown Mobile.

Club President Noel Eagleson closed out his third year in office with a heartfelt speech of gratitude to the membership for their confidence in keeping him in office for a record three terms. He told the club that his charming wife had returned from a multi-year overseas assignment and would be working in the northeastern US for the foreseeable future. He said looked forward to spending time with her there while maintaining their permanent home in Mobile. Ever the gentleman, Noel immediately turned the leadership gavel over to newly elected president Richard Cunningham to preside over the rest of the morning's activities.  

Chatting Prior to Lunch

Don Pritchett, creator of the popular diorama-style British Car Festival awards was called forward to present Noel with a special three-dimensional award that blended symbols of the American South with items from the British car hobby and Noel's Irish roots. Richard Cunningham then presented Noel with a plaque commemorating his three years of service as club president. 

Richard then read out the list of SABCC officers elected to serve for 2012. They are:

• President - Richard Cunningham
• Vice President-Membership - Jack Ross
• Vice President-Activities - Rodney McDonald
• Secretary-Becky Kramer
• Treasurer-Donna Cunningham
• Newsletter Editor - Robb Ogletree
• Members-at-Large - Mike Darby, Ron Wolverton, John Shaw
• Technical Adviser - Pierre Fontana

Since the club is not one to stand on ceremony, there aren't any badges or oaths of office - just "These guys are the officers, now let's eat," or something similar.

New President and Outgoing President

The most anticipated part of the event is the list of awards - some more serious than others, but all of them are presented with the club's gratitude. The 2011 awards recipients were:

• Grillmaster - Chris Cronk
• Colorful Character - Sandy Walter
• Suffering Spouse - Barbara Shaw
• Most Creative - Rodney McDonald *blush*
• Rookie of the Year - David Turnipseed
• Most Helpful - Kent Padgham
• Special Appreciation - Mason Blosser, Donna Jarvis, Linda Ross, Donna Cunningham

For the second year in a row, Ron Wolverton and Becky Kramer picked up and returned the tables and chairs that we used during the morning. This is a rather demanding task and SABCC certainly thanks them for their hard work in making sure the day went smoothly. The club would also like to thank Donna Cunningham for making the arrangements with The Spot of Tea and helping the membership get their reservations in on time.

 

Root for the Home Team at Battleship Rugby

Get ready to see how a real leather ball game is played when South Alabama British Car Club visits the Battleship Rugby Football Club on Saturday, February 11th at 1 PM. The home team is hosting the Jackson (MS) Rugby Football Club on the pitch at Battleship Park in Mobile 

The team has kindly invited us to park our British cars together near the pitch in a display while we enjoy the match. We plan to arrive around 12:30 or so and set up a tailgate event so we can enjoy lunch while the tough guys battle it out. Depending on logistics, we may be bringing the club pop up canopy and our club flag to stake our part of the field. We've even been invited to tag along to the team's watering hole to help them celebrate their victory or drown their sorrows, if you are so inclined. There are details to be worked out, but we will have the word out by email. Heck, we're even inviting the gang from the Mardi Gras MGs and the Panhandle British Car Association as well!


If you are not up to speed on the finer points of this exciting sport, our own Noel Eagleson will be conducting a primer on rugby at the January SABCC meeting. 



Stay tuned for details!
 

An Ad That Pushes All the Right Buttons

What a shame we don't have more roads like the one in this Triumph TR6 advert from 1973. Purportedly an English back road it shows the TR6 at its best - top down on a sunny day. It really makes you want to call the toll-free phone number at the bottom of the page to get in touch with your Triumph dealer

The only thing that's missing is a lovely young companion in the passenger seat.  

This is Where Your Classic Mini was Built

The Austin Longbridge Site - Google Earth

The screen capture included in this post is of the Austin assembly site in Longbridge, Birmingham. In addition to the original Mini, Austin (and the later successors BMC, BMH, Leyland, etc. ) manufactured various saloon cars, trucks and a number of models exported to the US such as the Nash Metropolitan.

The site was sold off to a real estate developer early in the last decade by MG-Rover who then leased back a portion to continue production of both Rovers and MGs until the under financed firm went into receivership.Prior to BMW's divestiture of Rover and MG, the modern MINI was scheduled to be built there, but instead went to the old Morris Cowley plant in Oxfordshire. 

You can see a number of brownfield areas in the photograph; these were once covered by production buildings that were removed by the developers to make way for new buildings, some of which include shopping malls, housing and a college campus. 

For an in-depth look at the Austin site and a history of the Austin marque, you cannot do better than to visit the excellent Austin Memories site run by John Baker. It is indeed a labor of love and I promise that you will spend a great deal of time browsing it.   

SABCC Tour of the Empire (with Apologies to Australia)

The first activity on the 2012 SABCC calendar is the next stop on the Tour of the Empire - Australia.

For the last two years, the members of South Alabama British Car Club have "visited" nations of the former British Empire by sampling the cuisine of those places. To date, we've visited Hong Kong, India and Jamaica (twice!). For our visit to the land down under, we'll have to use a stand-in and that will be the Australian themed Outback Steakhouse. 

I doubt you'll find items like meat pies, sausage rolls or even Vegemite on the menu, but we'll have a great time having a meal with friends. Mark your calendars now: Saturday, January 14th at 7:00PM at the Outback Steakhouse location at 901 Montlimar Drive just south of Airport Boulevard in Mobile.