A BRITISH sports car brand is set to return to the US for the first time since 2005 – but the timing couldn’t be worse.
The iconic marque, which only has a handful of models in its current range, sells its flagship roadster for $85,000 – but this price may soon become even higher.
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Its return to the US comes amid President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which add hefty fees to imports of all foreign-made vehicles.
For some enthusiasts, this might mean having to swallow an additional expense – or waiting it out.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Michael Hattem, a 73-year-old classic car enthusiast from Los Angeles, California, said he bought his first Morgan in the summer of 1973.
Now, he has his eye on the Plus Four model – which has been in limbo for many years.
But Hattem, who’s also the president of the Morgan Plus Four Club in Southern California, is worried that buying the car now – only for Trump to change his mind and remove the levies – could mean he ends up paying more unnecessarily.
“I just have to save a few pennies more,” he added.
“Let’s give it another 30 days. We’ll see what happens with the tariffs.”
Morgan, whose full name is the Morgan Motor Company, is one of Britain’s premier specialist car makers.
And for the first time in two decades, one of its key models is returning to the US market.
However, the company has unexpectedly been caught in Trump’s tariffs – a situation that began long before the trade war.
The company’s engineers have already been working for years to clear US regulatory hurdles to bring a four-wheeled Morgan to American fans.
This followed changes to a local rule that allows companies to replicate models that are more than 25 years old.
That meant that, in November – just as Trump won the presidential election – Morgan announced that the Plus Four, which was first introduced in 1950, had finally won approval for sale under the revised US law.
Indeed, a four-wheeled Morgan had not been sold in America since 2005 due to US emissions and safety standards.
But as the vehicles finally arrived in the US in March, Trump announced 25% tariffs on foreign car imports.
This, in turn, triggered a flood of inquiries from American consumers worried that their models would suddenly become more expensive to purchase.
Morgan cars are ripe for Trump’s tariffs, with all of their cars built at a factory outside Malvern in Worcestershire, England.
Furthermore, roughly 90% of their vehicle components are made in the UK – although the company sources the Plus Four’s 2-litre engine from German brand BMW.
Matthew Hole, managing director at Morgan, said the company planned to pass about half of the tariff costs to consumers.
That means a car priced at $84,995 would cost about 10% more, and add taxes and personalisation options to the mix, suddenly fans are looking at above $125,000.
So far this year, in the US, 200 orders for Morgan cars have been placed – accounting for about a third of Morgan’s annual revenue of around £48mn.
Under US rules, the company cannot sell more than 325 cars a year.
But despite the added costs, Hole said there has not been “a flight of people cancelling their orders”.
Hole added: “If you’ve been waiting for a Morgan for the last 20 years, a lot of our customers are already emotionally invested in it.”
In preparation of the tariffs, Morgan shifted some of the cars that were originally headed to non-US markets for American consumers – in a bid to cut back on shipping and logistics costs.
But any other strategy to offset tariff charges is tricky for the company – as they only make 13 cars a week on average.
This means the wait time for a Morgan car can be up to nine months – depending on the model.
Hole added: “One of the reasons why people are buying our car is because it’s built in this historic site in Malvern.”
But Larry Dalphy, one of the 150 members at the Morgan Plus Four Club, said the tariffs would cause the Plus Four to break through “a certain price barrier that some will find hard to swallow”.
Annabelle Tescione, chair of the western New York Morgan owners group, agreed.
She said: “Any negative effect on Morgan imports will cause a frown on a lot of our faces, especially after so long a wait for them.”
Hattem, though, who already owns seven Morgan vehicles, expected that he would still buy a new Plus Four.
He added: “I don’t buy expensive jewellery and I don’t buy shoes. But this is my one pleasure.”
High gas tax states
Here is a list of the states with the highest gas taxes (including local fees and federal excise taxes) in the US:
- 1. California: $0.86 per gallon
- 2. Illinois: $0.84 per gallon
- 3. Pennsylvania: $0.80 per gallon
- 4. Indiana: $0.74 per gallon
- 5. Washington: $0.70 per gallon
- 6. Michigan: $0.66 per gallon
- 7. Maryland: $0.65 per gallon
- 8. New Jersey: $0.60 per gallon
- 9. North Carolina: $0.59 per gallon
- 10. Virginia: $0.57 per gallon
Per Visualizing Energy.