The automotive world’s favorite old tinkering uncle, Morgan, has a new and substantially improved iteration of their Plus Four sports car, the Morgan Supersport, which we told you all about earlier today. The car still manages to keep Morgan’s old-school British charm while making substantial modernizations and updates, but it also reveals some key areas of automotive design that are seemingly completely beyond Morgan’s grasp. I’m talking about cupholders.
Yes, cupholders. Those nearly-ubiquitous cylindrical volumes of nothing built into your car, usually within easy arm’s reach and designed to hold a vessel full of the beverage of your choice, which I’m guess-hoping is piping-hot Yoo-Hoo. Morgan is still fairly new to the concept of cupholders in cars, only releasing their first one back in 2022 on the Morgan Super 3.
Morgan seems to have accepted, perhaps grudgingly, that people in cars may enjoy having something to drink, and need a place to store those drinks, so there is a cupholder option in the new Supersport. It’s not cheap though. Look:
Yep, £120 – about $155 in Freedom Dollars – for a cupholder. Just one. And where is it? Morgan decided the best place to put it would be here:
Do you see it? Lemme point it out:
Yes, that’s where Morgan thought a good place for a cupholder would be. In the very middle front of the passenger’s seat. I know the interior of a Morgan is a fairly compact space, but that still seems like a literal and figurative bit of a reach for a cupholder. There was nowhere on the dash or in the center console for a cupholder? Anywhere?
I mean, aftermarket companies have been selling Morgan cupholders for quite a while now, like these that fit on the door and cost about £110 pounds less than Morgan’s official one:
I guess that’s not good enough for Morgan, who decided that the best way for a driver to get access to a drink would be to have to grope around between their passenger’s legs. Because, let’s be very clear, that’s where the drink holder is holding that drink: in crotch-adjacent real estate:
There are so many weird decisions going on here, I’m not sure where to start. Only one person in the car gets to have a beverage, and if it’s the driver then they have to grab it from between the passenger’s legs. More reason to have a lid on whatever you’re drinking, especially if it’s hot, as thighs are in real danger here.
Is this just Morgan’s way of helping to encourage sexy interactions, as your fingers graze inner thigh when you reach for your 32oz Mountain Dew, eyes locked with one another, telegraphing raw, humid passion as you carom down some windy backroad?
Or is this just Morgan’s way of reminding you that their interior accessory people have yet to meet another human being, but they’re very much looking forward to it?
The location would be good for some sort of in-car urine management system, at least, though in some ways that’s the opposite of a cupholder. Still, if that was the intended purpose, at least it would make some sort of sense. Because, as it stands, this may be the most ridiculous place for a cupholder I’ve ever seen in a production – even limited production – car.
I’ll reach out to Morgan to see if there’s some brilliant reason for this that’s escaping me, but until then, I think I’m just going to enjoy the profound bafflement of it all.
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The car in the photo is LHD, so beyond the remit of this comment, but UK police can ticket you for “distracted driving” if they think your consumption of a beverage (or comestible) is impairing your car control. Maybe Morgan are looking out for their customers by putting beverages out of reach?
Almost as good as the cigarette lighter of a Triumph TR2, as was demonstrated to me by one owner.
He popped a cigar in his mouth, worked a match from a matchbook in his jacket pocket, reached outside behind him to light it on the rear tire, then brought it back inside the cabin to light his cigar.
Still the most British roadster thing I’ve ever seen, to this day.
The passenger doesn’t need a cup holder, they aren’t driving. So there hands are free to hold their beverage and hand the driver theirs.
Also the driver doesn’t have to have the ugliness that is a cup holder in their line of site all the time.
I guess your passenger can help keep the coffee hot?
Reminds me of high school days before anyone had cupholders.
Keeping it in the crotch was always the girl’s job.
It made reaching for the drink a lot of fun.
Life was simpler and more fun in 1974. YMMV
Perhaps they’re such sporting purists that they think our cupholder “need” is stupid, and this is a big middle finger to anyone dumb enough to spend $145 on a crotch cupholder.
They should have put it outside in the front fender. How cool would that be?
Knowing that their customer base is probably geriatric – it’s a feature, not a bug.
That will be kicked in the first time a passenger enters causing damage to one or both parties. Since they went automatic-only, they’re wasting space with that completely incongruous BMW auto shifter that could be used for a phone and cupholder.
Time to corner the crazy straw aftermarket
Based on my experience with Morgan drivers (ok, a Morgan driver) is that they keep their drinks in flasks in the pocket of their tweed coat or leather riding jacket, so there’s really no need for cupholders.