Morgan Plus Four review

Morgan knows that buying a car like this is likely to be someone’s lifelong promise to themselves, a retirement present perhaps, and wants every owner to relish every part of the ordering and build process. Configuring the car should keep you occupied for a while: once you’ve picked between the standard alloys, or the dished 15-inch wire wheels, and what colour you want them in, the paint options are literally endless thanks to a bargain £995 paint-to-sample option. Then there are the leather and roof colours, the stitching pattern, dash trim, carpets, exterior details and accessories.

Morgan has fully embraced the power of the options list for this one, so keep a close eye on that price, it can easily creep up and over the £70k mark. Somebody in the Morgan press office with a little too much time on their hands, and a lightly smoking calculator, worked out there’s over a trillion possible combinations.

You’re also welcome to visit the factory and witness your car being built, which you should. The juxtaposition between the modern-ish chassis shop where BMW powertrains meet their alloy cradles, and the wood work shop where the ash frames are hand crafted using ancient techniques, is a memory to treasure.

In terms of running costs, this is a big step on from the old Plus Four: the new one has 65 per cent more power and torque, yet also emits 30 per cent less CO2. As far as improvements on outgoing models go, this must be unbeaten in the whole car industry. The claims are 40.4mpg and 159g/km on the WLTP cycle. We're topping the former with ease in our long-term test car, despite driving it with little maturity.