The Lemon Fool

According to the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... or-company

The Rover engined Plus 8 was the car of my youthful dreams. I think I read a couple of years ago about boardroom disagreements.

RC

I strongly suspect this will be a disaster for poor old Morgan. Odds on this will turn out to be yet another example of a private equity firm destroying a venerable institution.

How many times have we seen them target an old-fashioned and not terribly efficient family-owned company turning out a high quality product but rather inefficiently. Inevitably there will be some members of the family who are desperate to cash out.

PE will promise them millions in new investment and those members who want the cash will welcome them with open arms, while the old guard will be seduced by the promise of sackfulls of new cash flowing in to improve the product.

And once they’ve acquired the company they’ll start stripping out `excessive’ costs such as investment in R & D, using highly skilled labour and high quality components, providing great customer service etc.

The quality of the product will begin to decline rapidly, but because of the company’s great reputation, built up over decades, the sales won’t reflect this.

Within a couple of years the company’s basic ethos of producing a quality product and caring about its customers will have been trashed, but the profits will have soared.

The PE firm can then sell at a huge profit to some dumb buyer, as the sale price will be based on the much higher profit. The PE boys scarper with their pockets bulging and the buyer wonders why sales are starting to drop dramatically as the truth starts to emerge that this is no longer a good product.

After another couple of years the buyer decides to cut their losses and closes the company.

It’s a depressing but very predictable outcome. Watch this space!

ReformedCharacter wrote:According to the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... or-company

The Rover engined Plus 8 was the car of my youthful dreams. I think I read a couple of years ago about boardroom disagreements.

RC

I cooed over that version too, in my childhood. But now I'm a grown-up all I see is a pastiche of a 1940's sports car, with most of the downsides that suggests.

And the Troubleshooters programme on them by Sir John Harvey-Jones opened my eyes. Details here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7182857.stm

So I have thought for a few years now that the Morgan bubble will burst before long. You don't see very many these days. Maybe this will be the final straw.

Watis

About 15 years ago I hired a Morgan for a long weekend from Berrybrook in Exminster. It was a fun experience and driving the car in Devon was an eye-opener. On a dual carriageway it was amazingly noisy. On twisty Devon roads it was fun to drive.

On the way back I drove the car as fast as I dared on a twisty A road. It was a hairy drive with a lot of suspension tramping. Having returned the car and picked up my C Class Mercedes I then drove at the same speed on the same road. With Radio 4 playing and one hand on the steering wheel it seemed a relaxed and comfortable drive at a sensible speed.

We both enjoyed the Morgan experience but have never hankered after another one.

regards

Howard

If anyone is interested, Morgan do guided tours of their Malvern works. I have done this twice and found it really interesting, although you do run the risk of being with a group of drooling enthusiasts !

https://www.morgan-motor.co.uk/factorytours/

Ha ha did someone mention R&D in the same sentence as Morgan, seems an oxymoron to me.

I drove a Plus 8 once, an "interesting" experience and if one wanted the best of that then a Caterham would provide better at half the cost. I hired one of those for the weekend and it was great fun.

I agree though that it would be a shame to lose the last bastion of British manufacture.

John

Clitheroekid wrote:I strongly suspect this will be a disaster for poor old Morgan. Odds on this will turn out to be yet another example of a private equity firm destroying a venerable institution.....

I fear you are correct, I can remember John Harvey Jones advising them on his telly prog nearly thirty years ago that if they didn’t ‘modernise’ their antiquated way of doing things that they be bust in four or five years!

I’m no great fan of their cars but I appreciate the company staying true to its roots and maintaining skills and methods that have all but disappeared elsewhere. Selling to private equity business just sounds like setting fire to the factoy in slow motion. What will they do first: outsource the wooden frames to some Far East factory that makes ikea chairs or propose building a ‘lifestyle’ SUV?

Bh

It puts me in mind of that other eccentric British car company, Trevor, or TVR.

Fine until it was sold to a Russian businessman.

Will there be any UK motor manufacturer after Morgan bites the dust?

staffordian wrote:It puts me in mind of that other eccentric British car company, Trevor, or TVR.

Fine until it was sold to a Russian businessman.

Will there be any UK motor manufacturer after Morgan bites the dust?

McLaren.

Paul

DrFfybes wrote:

staffordian wrote:It puts me in mind of that other eccentric British car company, Trevor, or TVR.

Fine until it was sold to a Russian businessman.

Will there be any UK motor manufacturer after Morgan bites the dust?

McLaren.

Metrocab.

Scott.