Memory is a strange thing. I have an American picture in my collection of a
smashed Morgan with the rubric that their bodywork was considered unsafe
because it was wood. Perhaps that was hype, perhaps the emission story was
hype. All I can do is report what I found. As for the Mini Marcos, I'll
check in Giorgano's book tomorrow.
Quoting Charles Petit <[log in to unmask]>:
>
> As a lurker on this list (I'm a writer intending, some day, to produce a
> news feature on biomimetics), I seldom enter discussions. The comments on
> the Spruce Goose, mosquitoes, the monster Barbazon (sp?) aircraft, are
> fascinating. Julian Vincent threw in the Morgan car. I do, as a former
> owner of a plus four, have some knowledge there. I forwarded the
> assertion to a Los Angeles, California Morgan importer and he says safety
> was not an issue in the car's near-abandonment, for awhile, of the
> U.S. market. Here's his reply:
>
>
>
> Wood in airplanes-wood in Morgans-it seems safe,
> light, flexible, renewable, a form of nature's composite, being
> cellular.
>
> Morgan stopped coming to the US because they no
> longer wanted the expense of meeting the new emissions standards begun in
> 1968. New DOT standards with collapsing bumpers, higher than what the
> Factory was using was an additional reason to drop out of the US market.
> The use of wood was never an issue.
>
> One fine point-I believe that the Mini Marcos had a fiberglass body.
> There was a very early Marcos prototype that had an all wood exterior
> body.
>
>
>
> I should also
>
> point out to Jim (though he can obviously claim no responsibility) that
> the
>
> Morgan sportscar was banned in the US for quite a period because it uses
> so
>
> much wood in its body work, and this was considered to be an
> inferior
>
> material so that the car was deemed unsafe. True or False??
> Opinion here
>
> claims that the Morgan is safer because of the wood (though there
> is
>
> relatively little used). Better to go for the Mini Marcos, which
> had the
>
> whole body shell made of formed wood. Very light, durable and
> efficient!?
>
>
>
> Julian Vincent
>
> Charles W. Petit
> Senior Writer, USNews & World Report
> Ph 510 558 8559 Fax 510 558 3123
>
>
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