After showing us a design drawing at the start of this year, Morgan now has fully unveiled the Plus 8 GTR. The company planned to create just 9 examples of this sports car. The first unit you can see in the picture above is finished in Yas Marina Blue.
The retro-designed borrows plenty of cues from BMW including Bavaria’s N62 powerplant. It is a naturally aspirated V8 and BMW stopped using it many years ago.
Precisely, this engine is 4.8-litre N62B48, which was available for the second-generation BMW X5 4.8i / 4.8iS. Here for the Morgan Plus 8 GTR, it generates a respectable 375 horsepower, which is 20 more than what X5 4.8i came with.
Comparing the horsepower with the engines available in 550i/650i/750i models from the mid-2000s, it is 13 horsepower more. In other words, it is the most powerful iteration of the N62 engine.
This particular example of the Plus 8 reminds us of the “Big Blue” racecar from the 1990s. Morgan decided to create the Plus 8 after it found some remaining rolling chassis some time back.
Almost all vehicles are in the finishing stages and will be delivered to their customers before the end of this year. A few of these, however, will be supplied at the start of next year.
While producing these sports cars, Morgan gave the buyers liberty to customise their cars according to their specifications. Out of the nine, five units are made for export markets, whereas the remaining four will reside in the United Kingdom. Morgan has given buyers a choice between a six-speed manual and automatic transmission. They could also decide if they want it to be left-hand or right-hand drive.
In the redesign, the engineers fined tune the engine and added cannon-like twin exhausts to improve the output and the throttle response evaluated against the Plus 8 of old times. There are plenty of features that give us a hint of the old model such as the centre-lock wheels with a five-spoke style similar to the Plus 8 race cars from the 1990s. We are also able to see the high shoulder line after a long time.
Before introducing the Plus 8 GTR, Morgan has been working on Plus Four CX-T. It comes with a better ground clearance to make it easier to drive on off-road tracks.
Source and Images: Motor1