In a sea of modern-looking SUVs and sleek sedans, imagine what happens when you rock up in a yellow Morgan Plus-Four, modeled on 1930s car design. You turn heads of course.
I was warned as I left the showroom that this car grabs people’s attention. But I wasn’t expecting to be stopped after just 30 seconds by a motorist asking if she could take a video of the car. Pretty much everywhere I went people looked, stared and made positive comments. Thumbs ups, smiles and honking of horns. So much goodwill on the roads.
People were equally confused, thinking this was an old car. Sorry to disappoint but it was actually built in the last 12 months – but it’s based on an old classic design.
The 2025 Morgan Plus Four does look as if it has driven straight out of the 1930s, with the same sweeping fenders, cutaway doors, flat windshield, and long louvered hood that four-cylinder Morgans have had for decades. It’s still hand-built at the factory in England, where Morgans have been made for more than 100 years by a workforce that last year produced about 850 cars in total.
Old looks, new tricks
For all its vintage exterior style, the Plus Four is no relic. It rides on Morgan’s ultra-light aluminium chassis, which gives the car stiffness without spoiling its delicate proportions. Add multilink suspension, ABS brakes, traction and stability control, and you realise this isn’t a museum piece with plates – it’s a proper modern sports car dressed up for a period drama.
OK, so you won’t find any of the modern driving aids like lane-drift, blind-spot alerts or adaptive cruise here. But you do get central locking, power steering, and – if you’re feeling wealthy – air con and a Sennheiser sound system. But really, the best soundtrack comes from the engine and the wind outside. This is the kind of car where less tech makes it more fun, not less safe.
The BMW heart
Under that long bonnet lives BMW’s 2.0-litre turbo four engine. With 255 horsepower, it doesn’t sound outrageous until you realise the whole car weighs just over 1,000 kilos. That means 0 to 100kmh in 4.8 seconds and a top speed just shy of 240 kph. It’s not a numbers car though, it’s a feel car. Shorter and narrower than a Porsche Boxster, with a stronger power-to-weight ratio, it darts into corners and pulls out of them with a cheeky grin.
Sport+ mode, roof down, elbows poking out of the cutaway doors – it’s raw driving at its best. But the Plus Four likes you to drive it nicely. Brake early, turn early, and feed in the power with some patience. But get greedy with the throttle on a bumpy road and it will wriggle, reminding you it’s still a lightweight car with plenty of torque. Steering is light and accurate, and that’s what makes it engaging.
Made to order
Every Plus Four is hand-built, taking about a month, and you can spec it how you want. Paint colour? Choose from dozens of solids, metallics, pearls, or bring your own sample. Wheels? Retro alloys or classic wires in colours from chrome to red to British racing green. Inside, there are 18 leathers, two-tones, wood veneers, body-colour dashes—the works. Avon tyres are standard, and the wire wheels are genuine centre-lock jobs. It’s old-school authenticity.
This is a bespoke British sports car with over 110 years of heritage. You’re buying history, craft, and exclusivity, not just any old weekend drivearound. And it’s a fast-moving contradiction: a 1930s lookalike with 21st-century bones. But the Morgan Plus-Four is not for everyone – not families obviously. It might not be as comfortable, practical, or even as sensible as a homogenous SUV, but that’s the attraction. For those who get it, there’s nothing else quite like it.
