I qualified as a Quantity Surveyor in 1965 and started work in the family plumbing and specialised piping company in Pretoria ( Dawson and Fraser). The company was involved in contacts all over the country, resulting in me doing a lot of travelling.
In May 1980, my secretary, Estelle Marais (24 years of age and recently married) arrived at office as usual in the morning topless (she always came to work in her Sunbeam Alpine (1961) with the hood down). I said to her that morning that I would really like to acquire a sports car. She suggested I look at a Morgan. At that stage I had never seen a Morgan.
A week later Estelle arrived in office with a Morgan catalogue which she got from her cousin Terry Allen, I immediately fell in love with the pictures and selected the 4-seater, 4/4, so that my 3 very young daughters could sit on the back seat when we used the car. With Estelle’s help I selected the turquoise blue from the catalogue, wanting to be a little different from the usual British racing green.
I placed my order with Angela Heinz via Terry in June 1980. The waiting list at that time was 40 months, however because it was a export order I was very lucky and was advised by Angela that my car would be ready In May 1981. I received my Pro forma invoice on the 27th of March, 1981 for the amount of 6862 Pounds including shipping. 1 Pound was then equal to R1,80. Landed cost was R12 351 ex Durban and, with import duty, the total cost was R 20 000. I arranged the import permit and paid Morgan UK who then paid Angela her 17,5% commission.
On the 18 May, I was informed by a Mr. D J Day (from the factory} that my car had been loaded on the ship “Aniello” and was on the way to Durban. It arrived the 2nd of July; however, there was damage to the front bumper and the wind screen had to be replaced. I went to Durban and collected the car and drove it back to Pretoria, very, very pleased and happy. We happily attended to 2 of Angela’s picnics in Johannesburg and met a number of fellow Mog owners.
The paint at the corner of the bonnet was chipping off and the guys at the picnic told me that if it did not chip off it was not a Morgan. I did however fit safety belts to the car which I have always regretted, I believe that if the car ever flipped in an accident you could be squashed to death, but I do use them.
In 1983 I left Pretoria and went farming at Zebediela, near Potgietersrus, where I farmed with citrus, table grapes, cotton and cattle. The farm was 46km from town, of which 25km was on a bad gravel road. As a result, the car spent a lot of the time in an open garage with lots of dust and was not driven for long periods. The cat loved sleeping in the car resulting in some minor damage to the upholstery.
We moved to Plett in 2000, driving the car down and soon after joined the CapeMog club, allowing us for the first time to really enjoy the car and meet some wonderful people.
Candy and I have had the pleasure of participating in 11 wonderful annual tours with the club. These tours provided us the opportunity of visiting and seeing parts of the beautiful Cape that we would never have seen otherwise. I soon realised that I needed a basket for the liquid padkos and thanks to Don Steenkamp who kindly made the bracket for the basket. I have a monkey on the basket that safeguards the contents.
In the 40 years I have had only a few minor problems with the car which still goes very well. I had to replace the brake shoes, clutch cable, windscreen, exhaust pipe, diff oil seal and a leaking petrol tank, all rather minor.
Because of a little over heating, I had an electric fan fitted behind the radiator. The car has now done 38000 miles and has a 1600 Ford Kent engine with the first number plate being my initials, FJF068T.
We love our car; and I really believe we can drive on some of the gravel roads if they are not too stony.
So, we can thank my young secretary and her cousin for getting a car that has given Candy and I many hours of pure windy pleasure, from light snow to rain and burning heat and we very rarely put the top up.
