The first car the Fifties racing legend drove legally on the road was a Morgan three-wheeler. “I was 16 at the time, an age
when your mind is focused on how to make a favourable impression on young ladies. With the Morgan I obviously scored
far better than I would have done with a motorcycle,” he recalls.
And yet the original Morgan was not designed as a chick-pulling sports car but rather “a people’s car”. The founder of
the company, HFS Morgan, was the son of a Herefordshire rector and learned his engineering skills working for the
Great Western Railway in Swindon. In 1909 HFS – as he was always known – built his first prototype car that was
designed to bring motoring to the masses.
It was called the Morgan Runabout and it had three wheels rather than four for the eminently sensible reason that
owners paid far less road tax for a three-wheeler (£3) than a four-wheeler (£25). Surprisingly the major car
manufacturers of the day did not rate the design, despite the fact that it was the first car ever to appear in the
window of Harrods.
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