Morgan Midsummer – Pininfarina Perfection

In perhaps one of the most curious pairings you’re likely to see, stalwarts of the British classic scene Morgan have teamed up with world-renowned Italian design house Pininfarina to create something that’s quite frankly astonishing. It’s a collab that no-one saw coming but it turns out it’s something that we all desperately wanted. Morgan has oft been a rather esoteric player in the grand automotive game but supporters of the brand are generally fervent and the Malvern-based firm has definitely reinvented itself in recent years, producing some truly excellent cars. It’s a company that not only celebrates the rich legacy that founder Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan built but one that also has its eyes fixed firmly on the future. It’s a dichotomy that works, however, and its latest Midsummer model is testament to that.

A celebration of coachbuilding in its purest form the Midsummer is what happens when two of the oldest and most respected in the game come together with a shared goal and the results are simply stunning. In the words of Morgan, the Midsummer was: “created in recognition of the heyday of European Barchetta designs and represents the shared vision of Morgan and Pininfarina, who have collaborated to reinterpret and celebrate the timeless Morgan silhouette”. And just look at it! Even the most die hard Morgan doubters will have to concede that it’s a pretty special looking machine.

Limited to just 50 examples (all of which have already sold, sadly) the Midsummer is an evocation of the classic open-top, two-seater racers of the ’30s and ’40s. Known in Pininfarina’s native Italy as ‘Barchetta’, the design language, as well as the hand-beaten aluminium bodywork may hark back to a more vintage time period but the technology underneath certainly doesn’t.

Concealed within the car’s beautifully sculpted and individually layered teak structures (yep, the trademark Morgan wood is still proudly present) is the running gear from its Plus Six model. That means a 3.0-litre, six-cylinder turbocharged engine that delivers 335bhp mated to an eight-speed automatic gearbox. The Midsummer then certainly has the mouth and indeed the trousers that you would expect from these two motoring icons.

We drove a couple of brand new Plus Six models recently, care of Bell Sport and Classic and Williams Automobiles respectively, and we were blown away by the car’s performance capabilities. It’s a pretty thing too but we’ll fully admit, as we’re sure Morgan will as well, that it can’t hold a candle to the Midsummer. The thought of that level of performance in a car that looks as good as the Midsummer has gotten us all giddy here at Car & Classic.

The two companies really have captured the essence of those early Barchettas while still remaining true to that unmistakable Morgan silhouette and the more we look at the Midsummer, the more we find ourselves falling in love with it. Named for the height of the summer and the conditions that this time of year brings forth we can just imagine melting down to the South of France with the sun shining and not a care in the world. It’s the perfect car for such open-top shenanigans.

Born from a shared love of the finer points of design and manufacture the Midsummer is a true celebration of both traditional craftsmanship and modern technology but alas, this is unobtanium for all but the 50 lucky devils that have already snapped up every last example of the limited run Midsummer, and that’s even before any prices have been announced.

The good news for the rest of us, however, is that we can still enjoy some excellent Morgans. All you have to do is find the one you want out of the over 400 currently listed on Car & Classic. We don’t know about you but the Midsummer has certainly inspired us to get browsing if nothing else.