It's Dr. Cranky's Fault!

[Harry P.]

After I saw Virgil's Morgan, I had to have one! The model is Minicraft's 1935 Morgan Super Sport.

It's almost absurd to post this in the "Big Boyz" section... yeah, it's 1/16 scale, but it's smaller than the typical 1/25 scale model! This thing is tiny!

Here are a couple of real ones... they were built for many years, very much unchanged until they "grew up" and had that 4th wheel added. As you can see, they were powered by a modified V twin motorcycle engine mounted ahead of the front axle. A driveshaft ran back to a rear-mounted transaxle, where power to the rear wheel was transferred via a motorcycle-like sprocket and chain drive.

I started with the chassis, which is very spindly and fragile. It's so tiny, and the parts are so thin and flexible that it's like assembling a bunch of cooked spaghetti noodles. I used brass rod to make a new sway bar, the kit piece had too much flash to bother with. The white things on the lower axle will be the mounting brackets for the front brake lines (not included in the kit but very obvious and visible on the real car). The partially finished chassis so far:

The kit is supposed to include a decal for the wood part of the dash, but that decal was missing from my kit... the perfect excuse to make a dash out of real wood. What looks more like real wood than real wood, right? Anyway, I cut the instrument cluster out of the kit dash, made a new dash from birch veneer that I stained and "varnished" with Future, and glued the instrument cluster back in place. The "chrome" trim ring around the gauge panel is thin solder, and the bezels on the instruments are thin rings I cut from aluminum tubing. I also added several switches that were missing from the kit's dash.

More to come...

[cobraman]

Cool cars. (?) The dash looks great !

[clovis]

Nice work!!!!

[GeeBee]

Nice, I love these old Morgans, cracking work on the dash Harry, can't wait to see the progress on this one ....

[Danno]

Good morgan, good morgan!

It's great to get up late.

Good morgan, good morgan, to you!

[TheRX7Project]

Needs a Hayabusa swap LOL JUST KIDDING!

That dashboard does look pretty amazing. If you told me the gauges worked I'd believe you!

[Harry P.]

Nice, I love these old Morgans, cracking work on the dash Harry, can't wait to see the progress on this one ....

New photos coming tomorrow (Friday)...

[jasoncamaro]

Wheres the pics Harry? Its already Friday here in New Zealand

[Harry P.]

Wheres the pics Harry? Its already Friday here in New Zealand

Sorry... got sidetracked. Here is the latest. Yes, the chassis is as spindly and fragile as it looks. Although this is a "big scale" kit (1/16), it's actually very small, as you can see by the bottle of paint. Engine is mostly finished, just needs a few small details and wiring. I used various metalizers and silver paint, and Testors Transparent Window Tint spray to give the engine parts, transaxle and drive chain some depth. The rest of the chassis is just plain old semi-gloss black.

Oops... I see that the left spindle has come loose at the top, gotta fix that!

[sjordan2]

I would love to have one of the new ones.

http://www.morgan3wheeler.co.uk/home.html

[Guest G Holding]

Motor looks great, but not as the real deal does.

The more I look......

OK....how many motors are there....Harley ??

OK........Back to Harry's build !

[The70judgeman]

Looking good so far Harry. What color are you planning to paint yours? I followed Doc's build also and I need to build one too. I think I managed to find one locally, fingers crossed, for below average price that I've been seeing. We're talking about more than $10 cheaper than the cheapest ones I've seen on a lot of web sources for a new/unopened kit. We'll find out Monday.

[Harry P.]

Looking good so far Harry. What color are you planning to paint yours? I followed Doc's build also and I need to build one too. I think I managed to find one locally, fingers crossed, for below average price that I've been seeing. We're talking about more than $10 cheaper than the cheapest ones I've seen on a lot of web sources for a new/unopened kit. We'll find out Monday.

I'm thinking red with black fenders and wheels. How much did yours cost?

[sjordan2]

That's one of the new ones I'm talking about (from 2011)

[The Creative Explorer]

Once in a while, we have races with those Morgans at the Dutch TT track, when wet, a sidecar from the same period goes faster, but when the track is dry, those Morgans seriously have some power.

They get the smallest female persons they get and stuff them on the passengerside on a little seat, as low as possible, to act as counterbalance. It looks very strange.

[The70judgeman]

I'm thinking red with black fenders and wheels. How much did yours cost?

I didn't get it yet. I'm meeting Casey and a guy from here on the forum, I forgot who, that will be here in town from N. Carolina at a LHS on Monday. We'll see then. It's from their online catalog...not off the store shelf. So, they'll have to find it in their stock room. It's less than $30.

[sjordan2]

I thought you might be interested in seeing the late Martin Swire's version with a revised tail. If you feel so inclined, there's also a link to the wire wheels he made for it.

http://www.freewebs.com/martsmodels/1935morganssaero.htm

[clovis]

Very nice work!!!!

[sjordan2]

YOWW!! This looks like an unbeatable deal. 1/16 Mog and Ford Model T together in opened but complete condition for a Buy It Now of $17.95 and $8.95 shipping. If no one else is interested, I'l get them later tonight, just for the deal. If you get them, let us know!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SET-OF-2-ACADEMY-1-16-SCALE-MODEL-KITS-/161021444863?pt=Model_Kit_US&hash=item257da042ff

Edited May 5, 2013 by sjordan2

[Harry P.]

Man! That's the steal of the week! If I were you I'd buy it now!

(I'd snag it myself, for that price, but I already have both kits).

[sjordan2]

Too late. I couldn't resist and bought them. Unbelievable price -- a fraction of what each of them could have brought separately.