The 1933 Morgan Super Sports "Spitfire"  pickup trike

 

This machine started life as a humble family model when it left the factory in late 1933 and registered in Birmingham, no doubt the pride and joy of it’s first owner who is now lost to history. I came across it as a “heads up” on the Yahoo Morgan three-wheelers forum last year and contacted a shop in Connecticut who was selling the project on behalf of its owner. After a few phone calls a deal was struck and the mog arrived in southern New Jersey on the back of a black pickup. It was a sad looking copper colored machine with bright green wheels, engine, exhaust, and mudguards in many pieces in boxes. The original idea was to do a “quickie” and get it on the road, but after removing the skins and the wooden body it became clear that this was not going to be a quickie job.

 

This sad looking machine needed a new body, replacement of the main chassis drive shaft tube, splicing of the engine mounting tubes and splicing of the two rear side tubes. As I got deeper into the job I realized that if I was going to go all the way I might as well replace the very badly repaired and rotten original fuel/oil tank with the correct spacing for a Super Sports and the side skirts. As it turned out the only parts that remains from the original (assuming they are the original) is the scuttle with the family fuel/oil tank holes covered over and new ones opened up to match the SS tank, the cross member of the chassis, the gearbox with new innards and the mudguards. The job started in September 2013 and completed on June 6, 2014.

 

I was going to use the beetlback cowl but as I wanted to have the side skirts in aluminum and machine turn the whole thing ala the snout of the “Spirit of St Louis” I decided to get creative. The logic to this was, “what’s one more or less beetelback in the scheme of things,” especially when this machine did not leave the factory as a Super Sports anyway. So with that in mind I came to the conclusion that the world was ready for a Morgan pickup trike. My original plan was to make a square box where the beetleback cowl was located but it just did not look right. The pickup bed had to overhang slightly but still keep the shape of the beetleback.

 

As I was building this thing the first idea was to paint the sides of the pickup bed with Morgan Motor Car Co signage, that was until I came across my long lost 1/72 scale Spitfire that I had made from a chunk of mild steel in 1966 when I was a young machinist in Scarborough Ontario. In those day’s I had the Spit mounted on the snout of my BJ7 Austin Healey 3000. I drove that car for a couple of years with this hood ornament and amazingly no one stole it, which goes to show how much more civilized we all were back then. So, I have decided to dedicate this mog to my first love, the Supermarine Spitfire, it is a “homage” to K5054 which we all know is the prototype Spitfire that first flew March 5th 1936 designed by that brilliant man R.J. Mitchell. To tell the Spitfire story, I commissioned Steve Gibson, a talented local artist to paint a mural on the pickup cab sides.

 

So, not withstanding the “tutt, tutt’s” from the purists side of the isle of the MTWC, presenting the 1933 Morgan MX2 Super Sports “Spitfire” pickup trike.