British sports car company Morgan begins a new era with former Lamborghini director Massimo Fumarola as its CEO. He begins the job as the brand which is famous for old-school building techniques eyes a future in a world dominated by electrified powertrains.
Lamborghini might be willing to dig its hooves in a little bit and stick to old-school engines or avoid turbocharging but Morgan is retrograde on a different level. Its vehicles make no apologies for looking like they’ve rolled out of the early 1900s. Wood is still extensively used and the cars are not really built to be all-out speed machines either.
That bucks modern trends like super-futuristic styling, hard angles and creases, and horsepower above all else. Morgan’s latest creation, the Super 3, is the first clean-sheet design it’s built since 2000. Now it’s trying to determine a clear path for the brand in the electric age.
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Steve Morris, Chairman of Morgan Motor Company, said: “This is an extremely important appointment for the Morgan Motor Company. Massimo joins Morgan at a time when it is perfectly primed and positioned for future growth and further success.”
For his part, Fumarola seems focused on maintaining the brand’s long-standing principles. “I believe as long as whatever we do is about Morgan, in terms of being handmade, focused on driving dynamics and lightweight design, I don’t see any issue why Morgan shouldn’t move into a new era,” he said in a report from the Financial Times.
While Fumarola’s old company, Lamborghini, is aggressively electrifying its lineup, Morgan should have a little more time to figure things out. Part of what’s allowed Lamborghini to wait as long as they have is the fact that it’s not a huge car company with lots of mainstream models. The same principle applies to Morgan but even more so since it’s considerably smaller than the Italian brand.
“We have time, we need to do things in the Morgan way,” Fumarola said. “There is room for portfolio extension, but that doesn’t mean it has to be into electric [cars], we need to look into the opportunities.”
And that makes sense considering that lightweight construction is a key factor for Morgan products. Batteries could compromise that key facet and nobody wants that. Morgan is old-school and with its new CEO, it looks like it can stay that way while it continues to grow.
