The Midsummer was designed by Pininfarina, an Italian company, and built by Morgan, a British company that makes sports cars. The limited edition barchetta without a roof makes me miss the good old days of the 1950s. It will cost around $200,000 to buy. It has a BMW straight-six engine and an automatic gearbox with eight speeds. Morgan is the best-known sports car company in England. For almost one hundred years, it has been making unique cars for unique people. But in all its years of history, it has yet to make many things as interesting as the limited-edition Morgan Midsummer, which was built in collaboration with the Italian design firm Pininfarina. Experience the rarity of the Midsummer, a barchetta without a screen or roof, boasting a unique body style and teak wood trim. Built on the Morgan Plus Six chassis, only 50 of these masterpieces will be crafted, with the demand already surpassing the supply. The Midsummer is a lot the same size as the Plus Six, but the outside of its body has been completely reworked. The biggest changes are the bigger tail and the more sculpted front end. Morgan thinks that it takes more than 250 hours to make each car’s hand-formed metal panels. This is meant to be high praise: the car looks like a concept car from a 1950s auto show. Morgan cars are usually made from wood, with an ash wood frame connecting the bodywork to the chassis. On the other hand, the Midsummer gets extra wood on the outside in the form of motorboat-style teak panels that go around the two-seat deck and fill in the gaps in the tops of Morgan’s famous low-cut doors. One hundred twenty-six different pieces make up the one on top of the dashboard. Each one is made of laminated teak layers that are no more than two-tenths of an inch thick. These handmade pieces for each car take an extra thirty hours to make. Morgan’s account of an “enhanced” Sennheiser audio system is a surprise. However, since there is no windshield, it will be hard to hear while driving. Since the Midsummer and Six, both have the same engine and gearbox, they are basically the same. When paired with the standard eight-speed automatic transmission, the 3.0-liter turbocharged six-cylinder BMW engine makes 335 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque at its peak. This engine moves the back wheels. The BMW’s round gear selector has also made it through the change, though it looks very out of place in the Midsummer’s art deco cabin. Though Morgan has yet to share performance statistics, the goal of less than 2200 pounds means they should be fast. Morgan is in charge of all the engineering on the Midsummer, even though Pininfarina and Morgan worked together on the concept. The car will be made at the building on Pickersgill Road, which is where the company has been making cars for 110 years. Morgan has yet to say for sure how much it costs, but we know it’s around $200,000 before taxes. The car won’t be government-approved for sale in the US, even though the lack of a windshield is likely to be a problem. However, Morgan says that American customers who have bought cars have done so “for their residences in homologated markets.” This is a reliable sign of how much money the expected clients will have. By the end of the year, deliveries should start.
