Charles Morgan
Discussion
Autocar is now reporting that "Charles Morgan is no longer part of the management team or the board of directors at Morgan Technologies Ltd". Does anyone know the story behind this?
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/charles...
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/charles...
Edited by SrMoreno on Tuesday 15th October 10:59
Morgan Technologies Ltd said:
Over recent months, and in response to the growth in volumes, model range and overseas markets, the management team has been strengthened across a number of different areas, reflecting the scale and complexity of an increasingly global business.
Have you ever heard such vague, corporate, PR-speak bulls
t? These people do not understand Morgan customers. In an effort to make the cars more modern/reliable/better-made, they will obliterate every thing we love about Morgan cars.Alex said:
These people do not understand Morgan customers. In an effort to make the cars more modern/reliable/better-made, they will obliterate every thing we love about Morgan cars.
So you think that 'more modern/reliable/better-made' is bad? I am sorry but the way cars used to be/are now is not the way they can remain. Doing so simply means a slow death. Morgan make some lovely cars but they must keep moving forward. They either have to step up or remain a tiny niche manufacturer and that simply means that competitors will end up so far ahead, what was once a quaint english car is simply an old english car that few will buy. Lotus made the Evora after the Elise and people love that just as much so don't assume this is 'the beginning of the end', its the start of the future.We don't know what has gone on behind the scenes, but Charles comes across as a very pleasant chap, Morgan through and through, as was his father Peter, who I met several times in the seventies.
No doubt more will emerge soon.
As a company, Morgan seem to be doing very well at the moment.
No doubt more will emerge soon.
As a company, Morgan seem to be doing very well at the moment.
I saw the following elsewhere on the net. It reflects my personal opinions perfectly. I appreciate that not everyone
can afford a Morgan, I couldn't for most of my life. However I'm now of an age when I realise that I and my generation
have seen the best of it. Many won't agree, but I believe an even greater number will.
metimes you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone…15
Tuesday
Oct 2013
Posted by thatoscarindia in Uncategorized, Working
≈ 1 Comment
.Tags
Charles Morgan, Morgan Motor Company, TVR
In the world of business one size does not fit all. Dress it up however you like – “brand identity”, “customer journey”, “emotional interface” – these meaningless phrases so beloved of MBA students (who wrap simple concepts in layers of linguistic nonsense to sound like they know something you don’t) actually all mean that people buy things for different reasons.
We all know this, but in business it’s no good saying what everybody knows even if you are actually doing just that. So they call simple things something else until the language is so impenetrable it seems they really must be talking about something quite clever. The late, great, Douglas Adams summed this up beautifully in a chapter of one of his books in which a scientist is giving a press conference about a discovery. He says: “Well, we haven’t decided what to call it yet but it’ll be something very long and very complicated, just to ensure you realise it’s ours, as opposed to yours.”
The problem with the annexing of rational thinking and everyday language in business is it becomes self-policing, and then dangerous. Suddenly, if you don’t sound like one of these automatons, you’re “different” and whilst corporate types love to pretend they like a maverick thinker, actually it terrifies them. They are pack animals and when they look in the shaving mirror in the morning they know it.
Which brings me on to Charles Morgan, and the reason for today’s piece.
Charles has run the Morgan Motor Company for some years. The family has run it since it’s inception more than a century ago. Morgan produces quintessentially British cars. They’re not cheap. Their joyfully silly Three-Wheeler (usually complete with RAF roundels and fake bullet holes) is the entry model at around £32,000. A top end Aero Supersport is £127,000.
For a while in the 80s and 90s Morgan steadfastly refused to move with the times at all, never mind a little. When the television business expert Sir John Harvey-Jones filmed his programme “Troubleshooter” at the Company, he expressed fury that nobody would listen to him.
But later changes came, led by the family trust which still steers the business and latterly managed by Charles. New models appeared, performance improved, build quality got better. The original cars retained all that people loved about them and the new ones built on it with a more modern twist. Sales went up, profits went up.
The Company also eyed new markets, not least in the US and China. Sensibly, new directors were recruited to bring some fresh perspectives and outside experience to bear and things went the right way.
But they began to, as my friend Wallace once put it, “inhale too much of their own gas”. Somewhere down the line they forgot why people buy Morgans. Let’s be clear here, especially for those of you who don’t love motor cars: a Morgan is generally not as fast as a Porsche, it’s less well made than a Mercedes, it’s less watertight than a Maserati, it doesn’t handle as well as a BMW M3, and it doesn’t have the equipment levels or safety features of any of them. But it’s special. It has something none of the cars I’ve mentioned here have. Driving one feels like thundering away from a 1940s RAF aerodrome. If you don’t have a labrador aboard you feel you should have. They are unique, and people are prepared to pay a lot of money for unique.
This morning the Company announced that Charles was leaving the business. He’d been removed as Managing Director earlier this year and become a sort of roving brand ambassador (given his immense charm, sense of fun and self-depricatory nature, no bad thing). Now he’s out.
How did this Company making unique, fun, slightly silly but beautiful cars announce this? It said: ”Over recent months, and in response to the growth in volumes, model range and overseas markets, the management team has been strengthened across a number of different areas, reflecting the scale and complexity of an increasingly global business.”
Now, read that piece of corporate blandness again (if you can bear it) and then remind yourself that this is a Company trying to sell you a car with three wheels, no roof and a shark painted on the front.
Doesn’t fit, does it? Feels wrong. Your MBA type would say: “The customer’s emotional loyalty to the values of the brand is being challenged”, but what he’d mean is: “They sound like dick-heads.”
And here is the danger lurking in the shadows. A Company like Morgan needs to remember that its customers are not buying a car, they’re also buying what it represents. It’s different, it’s fun, it’s very British. We’ve seen what can happen before, with the Blackpool-based sports car maker TVR. Under the late Peter Wheeler the Company surged to be a huge success, making outlandish, very fast and very noisy cars. Wheeler sold out to the 24-year-old son of a Russian oligarch and, two years later, TVR was dead and gone.
The Russian wanted to compete with Lamborghini, to sell to the kind of crass, brash new money people he knew in Monaco and Moscow. He had huge plans for cars which would be better than Porsche’s iconic 911, built in Italian factories, and the tone of the Company’s communications changed accordingly. He was warned this would not work, he didn’t listen. The new money bought Lamborghinis and 911s, whilst TVR buyers, with their bobble hats, disappeared.
TVR’s factory stands empty, and the engineering jobs it supported are gone.
The removal of Charles Morgan from the management team today is not, in and of itself, evidence that Morgan faces the same dangers, but combined with the tone of its communications it really is an indicator of dangers ahead, and that should alarm the family trust.
Morgan stands at a dangerous crossroads. It has clearly decided that growth and profits rely on change. In that it’s right, I’m sure, but between the excited MBAs now in charge, the talk of “market entry” and the flow charts mapping “the customer journey”, it needs to remember why people buy its cars. It’s because they are better than the competition, but not in a way you can illustrate in Microsoft Power Point.
can afford a Morgan, I couldn't for most of my life. However I'm now of an age when I realise that I and my generation
have seen the best of it. Many won't agree, but I believe an even greater number will.
metimes you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone…15
Tuesday
Oct 2013
Posted by thatoscarindia in Uncategorized, Working
≈ 1 Comment
.Tags
Charles Morgan, Morgan Motor Company, TVR
In the world of business one size does not fit all. Dress it up however you like – “brand identity”, “customer journey”, “emotional interface” – these meaningless phrases so beloved of MBA students (who wrap simple concepts in layers of linguistic nonsense to sound like they know something you don’t) actually all mean that people buy things for different reasons.
We all know this, but in business it’s no good saying what everybody knows even if you are actually doing just that. So they call simple things something else until the language is so impenetrable it seems they really must be talking about something quite clever. The late, great, Douglas Adams summed this up beautifully in a chapter of one of his books in which a scientist is giving a press conference about a discovery. He says: “Well, we haven’t decided what to call it yet but it’ll be something very long and very complicated, just to ensure you realise it’s ours, as opposed to yours.”
The problem with the annexing of rational thinking and everyday language in business is it becomes self-policing, and then dangerous. Suddenly, if you don’t sound like one of these automatons, you’re “different” and whilst corporate types love to pretend they like a maverick thinker, actually it terrifies them. They are pack animals and when they look in the shaving mirror in the morning they know it.
Which brings me on to Charles Morgan, and the reason for today’s piece.
Charles has run the Morgan Motor Company for some years. The family has run it since it’s inception more than a century ago. Morgan produces quintessentially British cars. They’re not cheap. Their joyfully silly Three-Wheeler (usually complete with RAF roundels and fake bullet holes) is the entry model at around £32,000. A top end Aero Supersport is £127,000.
For a while in the 80s and 90s Morgan steadfastly refused to move with the times at all, never mind a little. When the television business expert Sir John Harvey-Jones filmed his programme “Troubleshooter” at the Company, he expressed fury that nobody would listen to him.
But later changes came, led by the family trust which still steers the business and latterly managed by Charles. New models appeared, performance improved, build quality got better. The original cars retained all that people loved about them and the new ones built on it with a more modern twist. Sales went up, profits went up.
The Company also eyed new markets, not least in the US and China. Sensibly, new directors were recruited to bring some fresh perspectives and outside experience to bear and things went the right way.
But they began to, as my friend Wallace once put it, “inhale too much of their own gas”. Somewhere down the line they forgot why people buy Morgans. Let’s be clear here, especially for those of you who don’t love motor cars: a Morgan is generally not as fast as a Porsche, it’s less well made than a Mercedes, it’s less watertight than a Maserati, it doesn’t handle as well as a BMW M3, and it doesn’t have the equipment levels or safety features of any of them. But it’s special. It has something none of the cars I’ve mentioned here have. Driving one feels like thundering away from a 1940s RAF aerodrome. If you don’t have a labrador aboard you feel you should have. They are unique, and people are prepared to pay a lot of money for unique.
This morning the Company announced that Charles was leaving the business. He’d been removed as Managing Director earlier this year and become a sort of roving brand ambassador (given his immense charm, sense of fun and self-depricatory nature, no bad thing). Now he’s out.
How did this Company making unique, fun, slightly silly but beautiful cars announce this? It said: ”Over recent months, and in response to the growth in volumes, model range and overseas markets, the management team has been strengthened across a number of different areas, reflecting the scale and complexity of an increasingly global business.”
Now, read that piece of corporate blandness again (if you can bear it) and then remind yourself that this is a Company trying to sell you a car with three wheels, no roof and a shark painted on the front.
Doesn’t fit, does it? Feels wrong. Your MBA type would say: “The customer’s emotional loyalty to the values of the brand is being challenged”, but what he’d mean is: “They sound like dick-heads.”
And here is the danger lurking in the shadows. A Company like Morgan needs to remember that its customers are not buying a car, they’re also buying what it represents. It’s different, it’s fun, it’s very British. We’ve seen what can happen before, with the Blackpool-based sports car maker TVR. Under the late Peter Wheeler the Company surged to be a huge success, making outlandish, very fast and very noisy cars. Wheeler sold out to the 24-year-old son of a Russian oligarch and, two years later, TVR was dead and gone.
The Russian wanted to compete with Lamborghini, to sell to the kind of crass, brash new money people he knew in Monaco and Moscow. He had huge plans for cars which would be better than Porsche’s iconic 911, built in Italian factories, and the tone of the Company’s communications changed accordingly. He was warned this would not work, he didn’t listen. The new money bought Lamborghinis and 911s, whilst TVR buyers, with their bobble hats, disappeared.
TVR’s factory stands empty, and the engineering jobs it supported are gone.
The removal of Charles Morgan from the management team today is not, in and of itself, evidence that Morgan faces the same dangers, but combined with the tone of its communications it really is an indicator of dangers ahead, and that should alarm the family trust.
Morgan stands at a dangerous crossroads. It has clearly decided that growth and profits rely on change. In that it’s right, I’m sure, but between the excited MBAs now in charge, the talk of “market entry” and the flow charts mapping “the customer journey”, it needs to remember why people buy its cars. It’s because they are better than the competition, but not in a way you can illustrate in Microsoft Power Point.
Frimley111R said:
Alex said:
These people do not understand Morgan customers. In an effort to make the cars more modern/reliable/better-made, they will obliterate every thing we love about Morgan cars.
So you think that 'more modern/reliable/better-made' is bad? I am sorry but the way cars used to be/are now is not the way they can remain. Doing so simply means a slow death. Morgan make some lovely cars but they must keep moving forward. They either have to step up or remain a tiny niche manufacturer and that simply means that competitors will end up so far ahead, what was once a quaint english car is simply an old english car that few will buy. Lotus made the Evora after the Elise and people love that just as much so don't assume this is 'the beginning of the end', its the start of the future.As to more modern/reliable/better-made being bad question. I've been looking at swapping my 190E for something more modern (less reliable/more cheaply made...) and I've found that with a few, usually expensive exceptions, they're all bland. Everything is the same now. Now I know legislation, CAD, etc is the cause. But nothing has any personality any more. Take the personality out of Morgan and what have you got? You lose your current customers whilst trying to seduce customers away from established brands that you're now going to be compared with... Have Morgan really got the might to pull that off when Lotus and TVR didn't?
Echoes of Bristol...
For now, the hoardes of 40-60 year olds who grew up on B+W WW2 films (pumped out non-stop on Sunday afternoons), are the market for these characterful and sometimes bonkers cars. I'm right in that category, but when I got to the age and position when there was money to spend, I toyed with the idea of a Morgan for all of the same reasons, but decided on a different long-held dream car. (Different strokes, etc.)
But this warm fuzzy emotional connection, the one that the Morgan car company has been able to live off for so long, is disappearing and will be gone within a generation or two. Those old war films are no longer shown. Kids already have no sense of plucky Britain's past, where wood and hammered metal held off disaster and ultimately triumphed. New generations will see Morgans as expensive kit cars (yes, I know they're not).
It is gone. It happened with TVR and it will happen with Morgan. The new direction aimed at these coming generations will not work out; the old market is not being replaced.
Gramrugby said:
(snip)
Driving one feels like thundering away from a 1940s RAF aerodrome.
(snip)
This is why he had to go - in the eyes of the other board members (and in my eyes as a company director). Driving one feels like thundering away from a 1940s RAF aerodrome.
(snip)
For now, the hoardes of 40-60 year olds who grew up on B+W WW2 films (pumped out non-stop on Sunday afternoons), are the market for these characterful and sometimes bonkers cars. I'm right in that category, but when I got to the age and position when there was money to spend, I toyed with the idea of a Morgan for all of the same reasons, but decided on a different long-held dream car. (Different strokes, etc.)
But this warm fuzzy emotional connection, the one that the Morgan car company has been able to live off for so long, is disappearing and will be gone within a generation or two. Those old war films are no longer shown. Kids already have no sense of plucky Britain's past, where wood and hammered metal held off disaster and ultimately triumphed. New generations will see Morgans as expensive kit cars (yes, I know they're not).
It is gone. It happened with TVR and it will happen with Morgan. The new direction aimed at these coming generations will not work out; the old market is not being replaced.
Your so right. Stratstone in Edinburgh were for a very short period of time earlier this year appointed Morgan dealers.
I was waiting for a part for my XJ8 and talking to a salesman while killing time. He took great delight in telling me that he
thought Morgans were just a load of junk bought by anoraks who enjoy polishing cars. I don't think they sold many!. This was
not the Morgan salesman who I never met. I have heard that they didn't sell any in fact, but that's unconfirmed.
RPM in Perth - no comparison, real knowledgeable enthusiasts who are a pleasure to deal with and who I highly recommend.
What were Morgan thinking about when they allowed another dealer to sell their cars forty miles away from the only other one
in Scotland.
I was waiting for a part for my XJ8 and talking to a salesman while killing time. He took great delight in telling me that he
thought Morgans were just a load of junk bought by anoraks who enjoy polishing cars. I don't think they sold many!. This was
not the Morgan salesman who I never met. I have heard that they didn't sell any in fact, but that's unconfirmed.
RPM in Perth - no comparison, real knowledgeable enthusiasts who are a pleasure to deal with and who I highly recommend.
What were Morgan thinking about when they allowed another dealer to sell their cars forty miles away from the only other one
in Scotland.
Gassing Station | Morgan | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff