FUEL FOR THE FUTURE

By Gabriel Mosse

This 1936 Morgan MX2 Super Sports model, chassis number D1716, engine number MX2/665, was dispatched from the Morgan factory on December 30, 1936. The selling agent was Stanfield Staurance. Morgan V-Twin production peaked in 1935 because of the introduction of the new four-wheeled Morgan in 1936. Only 137 V-Twins were built in 1936, with about one-third being MX-2 Super Sports, powered with the overheadvalve, air-cooled engine.

An interesting aspect of the MX-2 engine is that it was produced by Matchless and also used in Matchless motorcycles along with the legendary Brough Superior SS100 motorcycles from about 1935. The main difference between the motorcycle version of the Matchless and the Morgan version are the cooling fins on the cylinder head; they are in line with the engine axis on the Morgan and at a right angle to the engine axis on the motorcycle.

At some time in the trike’s existence, this Morgan was modified for racing in the U.K. The chassis was widened 10 inches and lowered by approximately 3 inches.

ALSO IN 1936:

• The RMS Queen Mary leaves Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York.

• Alan Turing submits a paper to the London Mathematical Society which envisions his Turing machine, a predecessor to the modern computer.

• Jessie Owens and his fellow American athletes won 12 gold medals in track and field events at the Berlin Summer Olympics, challenging the propaganda of Nazi superiority.

• Playboy, entrepreneur, and racing driver Lance Reventlow is born. Writer and Nobel Prize laureate Rudyard Kipling dies.

• King George V dies, Edward VIII ascends to the throne only to adbicate in scandal. George VI, father of Princess Elizabeth, becomes King.

• First test flight of Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft.