Thursday 23rd July 2015

Unsung Heroes: Three-wheelers

Has one wheel come off Chris Rees's wagon? No, he just wants to convince us three wheels can be as fun as four

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I'm kidding, right - three-wheelers? No self-respecting PHer would be seen dead in a vehicle with one wheel short of the full square. Wobbly, unstable, rut-following jokes, the lot of them - right?

An understandable view, since most people associate three-wheelers with Del Boy, Mr Bean and cartoon-like bubble cars such as the Isetta, Heinkel and Messerschmitt. As a 'bubble' in prices of microcars attests, such machinery does have a big following, but if this is your only experience of trikes, you're really missing a trick.

Think three-wheelers and you'll think Morgan

Fun facts
I'll come clean here and declare I'm a serial three-wheeler owner. My first ever car was a Bond Bug, and I built a Lomax 223 2CV-based kit in the 1980s. So I'm very well aware of the limitations of three-wheelers, but I also know how just much fun they can be.

Consider these facts. Benz's first ever car of 1885 was a three-wheeler. And when Craig Breedlove broke the land speed record, he chose three wheels for his Spirit of America, which became the fastest car in the world in 1964 at 526mph.

Trikes offer light weight, low tax, cheap insurance and the ability to enjoy a motorbike experience on a car licence (with no helmet, I might add). Alternatively, bike licence holders are able to drive a 'car'. But don't three-wheelers fall over? Again I counter: racing Morgans dating from the 1930s are capable of lap times that can, and do, embarrass modern hot hatchbacks.

Reborn Morgan has been a success story

Malvern magic
Ah yes, Morgan - the archetypal enthusiast trike. I was quite prepared to be disappointed by the revived Morgan 3-Wheeler before I drove it, but there's something utterly irresistible about it. It screeches, whirrs, putters, cracks and pops its way along, spinning up its single rear wheel on demand, with an utterly blissful front-row view of the undulating suspension.

Well over 1,000 new Morgan trikes have now been sold, even at their elevated price tag of £31,140. That means lots of second-hand examples around at tempting prices. It's possible to find used examples from under £25K but main-dealer examples with ultra-low mileages and plenty of options seem very decent value at around the £28K mark.

Morgans look best in dark colours, like this 995-mile Sports Blue example but plenty have been tempted by factory dress-up and special edition examples, such as the Superdry, of which there's a 511-mile example on offer for under £28K.

Grinnalls and bear it
Morgan isn't the only three-wheeler in the PH classifieds, though. There's a whole world of three-wheelers out there. The UK alone boasts over 20 current manufacturers of trikes, from Morgan replicas like Triking to bike-based cruisers like Casarva.

Or the Grinnall Scorpion. Amazingly, this has been in production for 23 years, during which time well over 250 have been made. The idea of strapping a superbike rear end (in this case, a BMW K series) on to a car-type front end isn't new, but few trikes look as good, or perform as well, as a Grinnall.

There are two up for grabs at the moment. A 2006-registered factory-built example with 8,072 miles on the clock looks solid value at £8,250, while a 2,000-mile example with an R1200C engine is up for £11,995.

Whether you think three-wheelers are one wheel shy of the full set, or one wheel beyond preventing the whole show falling over, there's no doubt they're fascinating and intriguing. And on the right road, an absolute blast.

[spoodler]

For my birthday t'other half hired me a Morgan from the factory at Malvern. We managed to put several hundred miles on it that day taking in dual carriageways, A and B roads and the Brecons and Elan Valley. I've owned loads of cars and bikes, and I've driven loads more but this was the first time in years that one had me giggling from the sheer fun of driving - I was sad to give it back at the end of the day! Maybe if I'd driven my old Bond Bug backwards all the time it may have been as stable?
At some point in the future a Shovelhead engined replica beckons...

[spoodler]

sato - Being used to torquey old Harley Evo's I was initially a bit disappointed with the engine, once I realised how happily it would rev it was a much better drive. As for the stability and the steering, well, by the time it went back to the factory I think I'd perfected the art of three wheel drifting. Brilliant to have so much fun without needlessly thrashing it or abusing it.

[spoodler]

Glad it wasn't just me that had fun in the "hire car"...

Evo - just read both your accounts of your day out. Thanks for posting the links, thoroughly enjoyed! I could nearly have written the same account, even drove some of the same roads in similar conditions and presumably at around the same time. We saw the lairy car being brought out when we were awaiting ours and I admit were glad to be offered the green one. Unlike you tho' we didn't get the car back to the factory in plenty of time; embarassingly the road we were to use was closed for road works and the alternative took us to the far side of Malvern. That's not a big town but at commuter run time and no idea of where we were and a helpful local directing us miles out of our way... oh well, the folk at Morgan were very good about it...