Kings of the Stone Age: we twin-test the madcap Morgan Plus Four CX-T vs the tough-as-old-boots Lada Niva. Which would you pick for playtime at the quarry?
The editor rings me up. ‘We’re doing a story,’ he says. ‘It’s about old relics that still have some life in them yet, ha ha! We thought you’d be perfect for it!’ ‘Ha ha!’ I reply. ‘Sounds great!’ Then a pause. ‘Ben, why did you think I’d be perfect? Ben? Ben?’Click-brrrrrrrr.has been in continual production since 1977, making it the oldest new car still on sale today. And the Morgan Plus Four? Well, depends how accurate you want to be.
It’s the Niva’s cult appeal that brings us here today. Back in 2010 a chap called Mark Key, a graphic designer by trade, saw a Niva doing some icy 4x4 duties in a ski resort and recalled how cool they’d been when still on sale in the UK. To cut a long story short, Mark was inspired to privately import one from a Russian agent . He then sold this car on, thus starting what would become a wholly unexpected Niva import business.
Mechanically the car remains unchanged: the engine in now 1.7 litres and 82bhp . The gearbox is five-speed and there have been some refinement improvements over the years, but essentially it’s the same car. The example you see here is the Luxe model which adds alloys, electric windows, tinted glass and air-con, though personally I’d prefer the standard car with its steel wheels and stark purity. The combination of alloy wheels and drum brakes on the Luxe is like ordering pineapple on a pizza.
It looks like the unholy love-child of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and a radio-controlled Tamiya beach buggy.I ask Morgan’s James Lewis-Barned how the hell a car like this ever gets off the ground. He assures me it’s not down to any market segmentation or customer analysis: ‘Our designers are always sketching all sorts of weird and wonderful things,’ he says. ‘They pin them on the walls as inspiration, like private mood boards of ideas. Our CEO Steve Morris saw this one and just said, “Let’s do it”.
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