Good lord!
What's wrong Caruthers?
Well, I'm not sure. Look at this thing here. It seems to be one of those good old traditional Morgans, but there's something different about it. Something worryingly modern...
Ah yes, this will be the AR Motorsports Plus 4, a specially-designed limited edition of 50 cars to celebrate the 65th year of production of the legendary Morgan Plus 4.
Oh well, that's alright then. Stuck on a bit more wood, have they? A picnic set? Included a signed photograph of Princess Margaret?
No, not quite. Actually, AR Motorsports seems to have rebuilt the car pretty much from the ground up. The classic shape has been left unchanged, but you'll quickly spot exterior details like the all-LED headlights and the total lack of bumpers. Inside, there are more exposed aluminium panels, box-weave carpets and liberal applications of ash wood trim. There is even, whisper it, a rear diffuser.
Underneath, the changes are rather more profound. AR has binned the traditional leaf-spring rear suspension and brought in its own five-link setup, with coil-over-shocks. The idea is to dramatically improve the Morgan's noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) suppression while still providing a more thrilling drive. In fact, each car will be individually setup by an AR Motorsports chassis tuner, to find the right balance between road and track performance for each customer. The suspension is fully adjustable all-round too, just in case you want to tweak it yourself.
Then there's the engine. It's a 2.0-litre unit made by Cosworth, developing 225hp. Doesn't sound like a lot, I'll grant you, but then the whole car weighs a feather-like 900kg so it should do 0-62mph in just over six seconds.
All yours for £54,995 Caruthers. Caruthers? Caruthers, are you alright? Good heavens, I think he's fainted...
Neil Briscoe - 26 Jul 2015