A mid-1930s Morgan Super Sport "trike"
The image delights me every time I turn on my computer and it flashes up to fill the screen.
It shows one of the most idiosyncratic "automobiles" every created in full tire-distorting, elbows-flailing flight up the twists and turns of the Prescott Hill Climb in England.
And it proved just as intriguing to the chap in Mumbai to whom I recently turned over control of my computer to fix a glitch. It took a while, but curiosity finally won out and he had to ask: "Excuse me, but just what is that thing on your screen?"
The unlikely looking racer is a mid-1930s Morgan Super Sport "trike" - one of the last of a breed of three-wheeled devices so diabolically quick and quirky its creator refused to allow his teenage son to drive one.
Always faster than they had any right to be, Morgan trikes were trialed, rallied, hill-climbed and raced right from the start of production in 1910. And the men and women who raced these contraptions were among the bravest in an era when on-track courage requirements were as high as the penalties for misadventure were severe.
The Morgan pictured - possibly in one of the legendary Prescott Hill Climb's first late-'30s seasons or early in its postwar era - was really little changed, other than being frighteningly faster, from the original.
It consists of little more than a few lengths of pipe brazed together and covered in rudimentary tinwork, with a 1,000-cc Matchless V-twin bike engine up front sprouting drainpipe exhausts and driving its single rear wheel by chain. It would have been capable of hitting a truly alarming 100 mph (160 km/h).
And in contrast to the modern racing era's five-point harnesses, full-face helmets, fireproof suits and carbon fibre structures, its driver and passenger are wearing motorcycle leathers and "pudding basin crash hats."
The driver hasn't even bothered with goggles. No safety harnesses are in evidence, as being thrown out in a crash was considered safer than being strapped in. And using one would have limited the "monkey's" ability to shift his weight to aid cornering. Trikes often ran in the motorcycle sidecar class, which required a passenger.
The Morgan story began in 1909 when Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan - always known simply as HFS - a railway apprentice turned garage owner and cyclecar enthusiast, built his first motorcycle-engined three-wheeler.
This first Morgan was steered with a tiller, had an independent front suspension all but unique at the time and a high power-to-weight ratio that gave it excellent performance. It launched HFS on a venture that's still family-owned and now in its 101st year.
Lightweight cyclecars were in vogue at the time, but the three-wheeled variety were considered dangerous by many, which prompted HFS to prove his then-single-seat machines in competition.
On Boxing Day, 1910, he set off on its first competitive outing, the two-day, 300-mile-plus, London to Exeter and back trial, and came home with a gold medal - the first of many his machines powered by a variety of engines would win - and the beginnings of a reputation.
A two-seater appeared in 1911 and a year later HFS drove one at just shy of a mile-a-minute pace on the banked Brooklands circuit to win the Cyclecar Trophy.
The first actual race a Morgan competed in was also at Brooklands that year. Harry Martin - and an unsung passenger who spent the race crouched on the floor under the scuttle to cut wind resistance - dominated the field, lapping at just under 60 mph.
Success continued in 1913, in long-distance reliability trials and speed events, but the high point was achieved across the channel in the Cyclecar Grand Prix at Amiens. One Morgan entry was driven by HFS, but broke a piston. A second had a wheel fall apart, but the third, with Gordon McMinnies at the wheel, won the event outright.
Morgans were back in action following the First World War and continued to fill the trophy shelves. In 1922, Douglas Hawkes, driving his "Flying Spider," set new records at Brooklands that included a flying mile at 87.89 mph.
Speeds such as these may have been what prompted HFS to add front brakes for 1923. Hard to imagine trying to stop one of these things from 80 mph-plus with just a hand-lever-operated rear brake - see the reference to bravery above.
A number of women had already competed in trikes, but Kathleen Butler turned out to be a very fast lady in 1926 when she set a slew of speed/distance records at Brooklands.
In 1929, it was Gwenda Stewart's turn and she set no less than 77 records at speeds exceeding 80 mph and for periods of up to 24 hours at Montlhery in France. She wound up this brilliant year by covering 101.55 miles in an hour, the first time a cyclecar had "topped the ton." And got a gold watch and a free lunch from HFS for her feats.
But she wasn't done yet, going on to set a five-kilometre record pace of 113.5 mph at Montlhery in a factory-built single-seater, and later covering a flying kilometre at 115.66 mph
Few cars could match the three-wheeled Mog's pace or price, making them a popular mount for impecunious racers, and they continued to win through the 1930s, but with the advent of four-wheeled Morgans in 1935, their glory days were behind them. They continued to be raced, though, and Morgan produced a few three-wheelers up to 1952.
HFS Morgan may have been devoted to his trikes, but he obviously wasn't unaware of their shortcomings, and when son Peter wanted a fast V-twin version in the late 1930s, Morgan wouldn't allow it.
Peter Morgan, who took over the family firm, recalled telling his father of a "moment" in a postwar flathead Ford-four-powered trike that lifted a wheel in a corner and drifted across the opposite lane, almost "going over" in the process.
"Ah, well," was HFS's response. "Now you know why I wouldn't let you have a twin; with that you would have gone over."
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