Car Spot: Morgan Aero SuperSport

Just one of 200 ever produced …

When you think of classic British automobiles, Jaguar, Bentley, and Aston Martin first come to mind. They are, or at least were, hand-crafted classics. But there’s another manufacturer that’s been around and hand-crafting vehicles since 1909, Morgan which remains a temple of tradition within the auto industry as it persistently preserves the past while tolerating the future.

Only Morgan could have given the world an incomparable blend of “old-world craftsmanship and out-of-this-world styling and performance” in the form of the 2010 Morgan Aero SuperSport, this week’s spot.

This SuperSport is 1 of just 200 ever produced and the only one in the world painted Sierra Red. Hood louvers and oversized headlights from ghosts of Morgans’s past are in sharp contrast to 21st-century design. Credit the SuperSport’s DNA which traces back to the 1996 Morgan Plus 8 GTR race car, known in the racing world as simply Big Blue. The aluminum chassis and body carry forward from Big Blue, but the angry 600-horsepower race engine was supplanted by a distinguished 4.8-liter M62 V-8 specially sourced from BMW with a 6-speed automatic transmission. That spirited combination delivers 362 horsepower and 361 foot-pounds of torque in a car that barely clears 2500 lbs. The byproduct is an operatic baritone exiting through “Aero Racing” engraved side pipes as this SuperSport flies 0 to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds on the climb to 170 mph

A flawless creamy white leather interior with varnished wood accents is a reminder of the unbending quality built into this SuperSport. In true Morgan fashion, production of this hand-built Aero SuperSport includes the use of structural ash like Morgans throughout history and took close to a full year to complete as one of the last SuperSports ever built and was on display at the Automobile Gallery of Green Bay.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out this week’s spot. I have tons of others on the site I’ve found on my travels so feel free to look through them. Come back next week for another one of my spots along with some of its history and have a great weekend.