The 2009 Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance presented by Rolex will include a special reception and centennial celebration for Morgan motor cars at the historic Carmel Mission on Thursday, August 13.
Charles Morgan, the current Managing Director and grandson of the Morgan Motor Company founder, will head the parade of Morgans participating in the Tour d’Elegance. These same cars will be competing for Class and Special Awards in the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on Sunday, August 16, where Morgan is a featured marque.
Other Morgan owners are invited to bring their cars to the Carmel Mission to greet these Morgans and celebrate with them, and the public is also invited to attend.
The traditional Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance departs from the Pebble Beach Equestrian Center at 8:30 a.m., tracing portions of 17-Mile Drive and dipping down famed Highway One before pausing for lunch in Carmel-by-the-Sea and then returning to Pebble Beach. The Morgans will depart from the Equestrian Center at 9:30 a.m., following a special route that traces Scenic Road to the Carmel Mission, established by Father Junipero Serra in 1771. The Morgans are expected to be at the Mission from about 10 to 11:30 a.m. before joining the rest of the Tour in downtown Carmel.
“Morgan is an amazing family-run operation that’s been producing select hand-built cars for the last 100 years,” says Pebble Beach Concours Chairman Sandra Button. “We’ll get to see these great, lightweight and very sporting machines – everything from early Morgan three-wheelers to classic Morgan race cars to the new Morgan Aero SuperSports and Morgan LIFECar.”
Morgan Motor Company has produced classic sports cars for owners ranging from the late Peter Sellers to Mick Jagger. A variety of these classics will be featured throughout the Pebble Beach Auto Week.
“We’re honored to be celebrated at the greatest Concours in the world,” says Charles Morgan, whose grandfather (H.F.S. Morgan) and father (Peter Morgan) preceded him at the company’s helm. “We’re celebrating three generations of economical, safe, fun-to-drive sports cars: the Morgan Three-wheeler, an affordable but fast cyclecar; the Morgan Plus Four, the last of the real sports cars; as well as the Morgan Plus Eight and the Morgan Aero Eight, which demonstrate a sustainable way of manufacturing a lightweight aluminum car.”
A new Morgan will also be introduced to the North American market here.
“Pebble Beach is the ideal place for Morgan to launch the Morgan Aero SuperSports,” says Charles Morgan, whose company produced about 700 vehicles for sale in Europe in 2008 and is now eyeing the U.S. market. “This is a lightweight luxury sports car that brings some glamour back into motoring. The performance of the car in the FIA GT3 World Championship shows it is one of the fastest sports cars in the world, yet it is also beautiful, economical, efficient and safe.”
For more information, visit www.pebblebeachconcours.net.
[Source: Pebble Beach Concours]
