[music playing] we've shown the morgan motorcompany several times here on "drive," but just like anythingelse, different people bring out differentthings of the same places. that's why i asked matt to joinand give his perspective
antique woodworking tools dealers, of the malvern-based company. matt farah: my god,look at that. -that was about-- matt farah: this is vincewhen he started here.
look at that hair! -that's when he was inthe jackson five. -i wish. [inaudible] michael. matt farah: i think the jacketi just bought is lined in that hair. [laughter] -long gone.
matt farah: how manyyears, vince? -since 1977. matt farah: 1977,he's been here. how many of those frames youthink you've cranked out? -7,000. matt farah: 7,000 framesthat guy has made. that's amazing. how many has he got right? [laughs]
matt farah: in america, and ineurope as well, people are obsessed with havingthe fastest car. and even if someone sells themclaren mp4, the ferrari-- people can't wait to modify themwith bigger turbos and making them faster. but i tried to look, and it isvery hard to find any example of an aftermarketmodified morgan. if it's been done, icouldn't find it. jf musial: no, there have.
matt farah: there have been? but, they're few andfar between, right? jf musial: the point about ithink a morgan, really, is it's all about balance. matt farah: right. jf musial: it's not reallyabout ultimate power. and i mean the morgan that ilike is the one that brakes later than everybodyelse, that goes faster into the corner.
but actually because it'slightweight, probably comes out faster too. but the philosophy of morgan, ifyou like, is to have a car that drives really well aroundthe curves, around the twists and the curves rather thanbe outright sort of macho performance on the drag strip. jf musial: which is, to behonest, a sort of american speciality, isn't it? matt farah: yeah.
jf musial: and i think withthe combination of bmw and fairly sophisticated chassisengineering with morgan, perhaps there's a little moreconcentration on the balance and on the drivabilityof the car and the finessing of the car. matt farah: but ultimately, azero to 60 time, or a lap time, do you find that to beless important than, just, how happy the driver is when he'sdriving the car, regardless of whatever those numbers are?
jf musial: what i enjoy, to behonest, and this is a personal thing, but what i really enjoyis having a car that has that classic style. and there's no doubt about it,some of the cars built in the 1950s and the 1960s have anawful lot more style than a bewinged space rocket thatyou get nowadays. i like having a car with thatclassic style, but is actually pretty much as fast off the lineas the thing that looks like a, sort of, futuristicrocket.
matt farah: i kind of like itbecause if i buy a car, i think it's a lot more importantthat the car feels fast, than that it is fast. you know? jf musial: yeah. i mean it's to do as well withfeeling comfortable in it. and i mean of course, whenyou're in some of these cars-- if you're a professionalracing driver, it's a different thing.
jf musial: but if you're not aprofessional racing driver, and to have a wind screen that'stwo foot in front of you, to have a pillar that youcan't see through, to be-- the engine is around your head. to have all that noise and thelittle slit side windows, i've often wondered how thoseaudi guys cope, really. because in the lmp1 audi,they haven't even got a side window anymore. matt farah: this is the bestsmelling room in the whole
factory, i think. the whole factory-- oh, you go to the room thatsmells like wood, that's where you want to be. mmmm! he knows what he's doing. i can tell. you know exactly whatyou're doing. you're an expert in wood.
so how much time would you spendon each individual piece before it goes on the car? -until it's right. matt farah: well,there you go. -you know, i'm only cleaningthis up, so. i'll show you the other side. matt farah: is thisthe rough side? - yeah. these are just put in a jigand glued together.
this glue, it's likeaircraft glue. matt farah: yeah -and-- matt farah: so that'sthe rough side. what's the smooth side like? -yeah,let me just make itfit in this aperture. matt farah: oh, that's a door. i didn't even realizethat's a door. -so we just fit it therein that way.
and fit it flush that way. matt farah: so you're really notgoing to get a door-- this door is for this carand only this car. -yeah. you could probably make it fitanother one in a push. we could probably make itfit, but it's not-- matt farah: so is each carone person, or each wood structure, or do youguys-- yeah. -wood frame?
so you're on this one,start to finish. -just put this door on, andthen it's finished. matt farah: do youget to put your signature on it somewhere? -no, you put a number on it. you know which is yours just bylooking at the [inaudible] matt farah: you can just tell. matt farah: so you could walkaround and go, ok, i made that one, or--
-sometimes. you have to check. but-- matt farah: can you tell otherpeople's work too, or just your own? -i'm not interestedin anybody else's. matt farah: that's theanswer, right there. -except mine, i've gotbig numbers those are 50 year old numbers.
and they're all big. over there, he's gotsmall numbers. so things like that. matt farah: what is the mostmodern tool that you use? -the battery stuff, i expect. these. matt farah: but even these are30 years old inventions, at least, right? -oh yeah, but the batteryones are better now--
matt farah: but you mean just isthe fact that it's battery powered and not plugged in,that's what makes-- i mean, they just got ridof pump screwdrivers. matt farah: it's amazing howthere's, like, five different pieces of wood here that itjust feels like one piece. -you still have all the jigsand all the tools to make these old-- jf musial: we do,more or less. i mean obviously, the company'snow 103 years old.
so we don't really go prewar. there are specialistswho do, actually. i mean if you've got athree-wheeler you could have the whole thing rebuiltfor you. -that's amazing. jf musial: which wasbuilt prewar. we go from the '50sonwards, really. -got it, ok. jf musial: and actuallywhen you--
matt farah: can i jump inhere for one second? in terms of originality,electric cars-- matt farah: you can havea survivor car, and a restored car. given this, maybe it has a 40year shelf life of the wood, or whatever. does that affect the long-termterm collector car value if you have something sent backhere, and restored and re-wooded, or whateverthe term is.
in fact, you'd be surprised. especially with modernwood preservatives. i mean this wasn't really putin a tank of modern chemical preservatives. so that's probably why it won'tlast as long as the modern frame. the modern frame willoutlast steel. i don't know whether it willoutlast aluminum, but it will outlast steel.
i think, to be honest, thecollectability of a car is based on its rarity value,it's based on how many were built. and then it's also based onoriginality, you're right. but to be honest all these days,you've got cars that have been restored-- matt farah: repairedin some way. jf musial: and there's nothingwrong with that, if it was an original car in thefirst place.
what is obviously wrong istaking a chassis number that didn't exist. and recreating something. matt farah: how's it going? what's the most advancedtool you have here? is it a battery? matt farah: looks likethe newest thing he's got is a battery. that's the older one.
-i got it today. matt farah: did you? yes. really advanced tooling cominginto the factory. - [inaudible] matt farah: that's amazing. god, i love this place. matt farah: god, thisis great, man. it's like building antiquefurniture you can drive.
if you were going to retire, andi was going to take over your job, how long wouldit take you to teach me to do your job? -a month. matt farah: that'ssignificant. considering at its mostbasic, you're drilling and cutting wood. a month of training of drillingand cutting wood is not a small amount.
-you'd pick it allup in a month. matt farah: you havesome press there. there's a major innovationat [inaudible] who needs robots when you havepeople like this, it's great. matt farah: whether you likewhat the engineers or the designers have done or not,you can tell that an enthusiast made a decision-- or a very small groupof people. i mean, how many peoplework here, 100?
jf musial: 180. matt farah: again you might have180 accountants at gm. you know what i mean? so the decision-making processis such fewer people. jf musial: oh, and thepassion is there. you know, i don't think thepassion's there in the mass production car industry,really. matt farah: not in theoffices, so much. jf musial: but the passionand low volume is
still very much there. all the guys who work onthis car really want it to be the best. and when you watch them leavingthe factory, i know everybody feels [thumps heart] weak at that. matt farah: and do you find thatyou're more nimble as a company because you'resmaller? jf musial: of course.
matt farah: if you need to makea change, that change can be implemented in, literally,the next car you make, versus going through this process. jf musial: absolutely,no absolutely. and we will do exactly that. so i mean, any customerissues or when we launch a new design-- [bell rings] matt farah: lunch bell?
is that the back to work bell? jf musial: now when we launcha new design, i mean there will be feedback fromthe dealers. typically, obviously, what wedo first is build, say, 50 dealer demonstrators. we'll actually take all theinformation from those test drives and those dealer drives,and then feed it back into the production systemand make sure that issue is solved.
matt farah: i like it. it's nice. i like to know that if somethingneeds to be changed, it can be changed, like,on the next car. matt farah: i'm not trying to doa stand-up, but this is the coolest thing probably in thewhole factory, actually. because this tool is olderthan my father. and it's still being usedto build cars today. basically it's just a verysimple jig that's used for
bending wood for the framesfor right here. see this? this is what theybend it into. and all you have to do is putlayers of wood in here, with a bunch of glue-- there's clearly remnants of it over there-- and leave it for a few hours. and then you get a rigidstructure made of curved wood. i mean, this looks like itcame off a pirate ship.
and it was involved in buildingthis super car that i drove this afternoon. [bell rings]. it's mind-boggling. come here, and thengo to ferrari. and then, realize at the end ofthe day, the cars that come out are equally reliable. jf musial: there was anotherthing actually that somebody the other day commented on,which i thought was very true.
you can have too much-- what's the word-- uniformity, and one of theinteresting things is if you hand-punch the louvers, when thesunlight hits them you get very slight-- matt farah: just imperfectenough-- it's a bit like a savilerow suit or something. you just want the stitchingwhich is hand-done, rather than by a machine.
matt farah: or-- even if the [inaudible] is jf musial: to be honest it'smuch more interesting. it's nicer.
