This car belongs to fellow Gawler club member, Allen Rowley (Steve's dad actually). In recent times it has been called the Morgan-Fiat Special and it was built in New Zealand. It has nothing to do with the English Morgan. Apparently Nat Buchanan had a partner in the business by the name of Morgan. The above body style was a later innovation and its looks are apparently just like the DB3S coupe but without the roof. Buchanan and Morgan had a parting of the ways and Morgan moved to New Zealand, taking a chassis and body with him. It is a twin tube chassis and some of us are wondering if it could be another Rizzo one. It was originally built up in NZ using a side valve Ford E93A engine. The Fiat powerplant came later. Can anybody else add to this little story?
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Buchanan connections
Here's one for Roo.
This car belongs to fellow Gawler club member, Allen Rowley (Steve's dad actually). In recent times it has been called the Morgan-Fiat Special and it was built in New Zealand. It has nothing to do with the English Morgan. Apparently Nat Buchanan had a partner in the business by the name of Morgan. The above body style was a later innovation and its looks are apparently just like the DB3S coupe but without the roof. Buchanan and Morgan had a parting of the ways and Morgan moved to New Zealand, taking a chassis and body with him. It is a twin tube chassis and some of us are wondering if it could be another Rizzo one. It was originally built up in NZ using a side valve Ford E93A engine. The Fiat powerplant came later. Can anybody else add to this little story?
This car belongs to fellow Gawler club member, Allen Rowley (Steve's dad actually). In recent times it has been called the Morgan-Fiat Special and it was built in New Zealand. It has nothing to do with the English Morgan. Apparently Nat Buchanan had a partner in the business by the name of Morgan. The above body style was a later innovation and its looks are apparently just like the DB3S coupe but without the roof. Buchanan and Morgan had a parting of the ways and Morgan moved to New Zealand, taking a chassis and body with him. It is a twin tube chassis and some of us are wondering if it could be another Rizzo one. It was originally built up in NZ using a side valve Ford E93A engine. The Fiat powerplant came later. Can anybody else add to this little story?
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2 comments:
Jock Morgan was Nat's partner when they set up the Buchanan Motor Company at Annandale in 1956. You can find a photo of them here in the Modern Motor road test of the Buchanan MG: http://www.buchananmotorcompany.com/images/modern%20motor%20buchanan%20october%201957.pdf
The body in the picture is an amalgam of the original Buchanan coupe and the body copied off the DB3S. There's a better view of the coupe in this article: http://www.buchananmotorcompany.com/images/Modern%20Motor%20Oct%201956%20New%20Plastic%20Car%20Built%20Here.pdf
The coupe was a copy of the DB3S coupe of 1953/54 that crashed at Le Mans, albeit a very poor copy. It wasn't until Tom Sulman returned to Australia with his Kangaroo Stable DB3S allowing Nat Buchanan to copy the body correctly by taking a mould.
I've just been going back through some old research and the Morgan may be the proto for the second part of Buchanan's original business venture with Jock Morgan. After the Buchanan Coupe debuted, to be offered as a complete car, Nat wanted to offer a open bodied version.
To quote "Sports Cars Made In Australia, Wheels November 1956: The other half of the venture is the supply of open bodies for sports cars. The bodies, similar in line but without the fixed top of the saloon, can be supplied to wheelbases of 7'3" to 8'. They will be supplied unpainted and without fittings and furnishings, or complete with seats and all fittings. Indeed, a tubular chassis can be supplied as well as motor and transmission."
As things transpired the plan was modified after the Sulman DB3S crashed and became availabe to take a mould off when the Aston body was removed from its chassis. The first Buchanan body, as we know it today, debuted March 16 1957 at Strathpine in Queensland driven by Bill Weekes and mounted on his MG TF.
There had been rumours of the original Buchanan open body but never anything definitive was published. I believe this red Morgan may be just that car. I wonder where the original Buchanan coupe is, it was still known to be around in the early 1980's.
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