Morgan 3 Wheeler
England has always had a number of unusual vehicles on the road, they all seemed to fill a need, like this Morgan 3 Wheeler of the 1930s. A vehicle with fewer than four wheels was classed as a motorcycle, and was charged far less to register for road use. During the World-wide Depression, this was especially important.
While a young man might ride around happily on his own on a motorcycle, his date might find it less than fun, and when she became his wife, this was definitely not going to work! A natural result of being married, the children that inevitably appeared muddied the picture even further. This “car,” and others like it, served as the next step in the transportation hierarchy.
I like to think of this as the first hybrid, not because it has two drive systems, but rather two types of motor vehicles, mated together! I can imagine a tinkerer, working in his garage, with a motorcycle that has a broken frame (or some other problem), and a car with a broken rear axle. How long would it take to come up with the plan to cobble one of these?
I make this sound like something thrown together in an afternoon, in a barn, but it was actually produced by the Morgan Car Company, in England. A few years ago, at the Los Angeles Auto Show, in the Morgan booth, they had a blown up photo from about the time that this 3 Wheeler was being built! On one side of their “factory” were the four wheeled cars, on the other side, the 3 Wheelers.
While it wasn’t very roomy, it did afford some protection from the elements, and a little more comfortable seating arrangement, even if an infant were thrown into the mix. It has a windshield, larger seats, and mudguards (fenders), so you could arrive at your destination not looking as if you were dragged by rope to get there! Come to think of it, in view off the sloppy conditions in England, due to all the rain, mudguards is probably the better term to use!
This particular example has a 1,000 cc Matchless V-twin engine. This engine was quite advanced for its time, and even featured water cooling! It was probably a good thing, in view of the load that the engine had to pull. This one is in the private collection of a lover of unique cars, and he enjoys driving it immensely!
In case you think these were probably VERY slow, I met a man one day that used to race one in the 1950s in Southern California road races!
In case you’re laughing, we all might be running around in the near future in something that resembles these, if some people have their way! After all, this is very green! Oh, well, it beats a bicycle, I guess.