Estimated Price: £35,000 - £40,000

Few vintage sporting cars can boast a history quite as colourful as this remarkable 1928 Morgan Three Wheeler. Chassis #823A, powered today by a special 1,320cc Anzani engine, has a fascinating provenance stretching from its delivery new in Australia in 1928, through an extensive period competition career, restoration and development, to its place in Nick Mason's Ten Tenths Collection, where it has resided since 2014.

According to the extensive history file, the Morgan was purchased new by Jim Thoms of Five Docks, Sydney, around September 1928, having been imported through Williams Brothers in Sydney. Thoms’ friend and fellow motorcyclist Mitch Marks was associated with the car from the outset, and within months it was being used in competition. The Morgan was entered for the January 1929 meeting at Penrith Speedway, west of Sydney, where it enjoyed considerable success, beating both Ford and Alvis opposition. Period photographs in the history file capture Thoms and Marks with the car following its victory, providing a remarkable visual record of the Morgan during its earliest months.

Thoms retained the car until the 1930s, after which it passed through a number of Australian owners. By the early 1960s, it had joined the collection of John and Jack Finglass, who were serious motorcycle enthusiasts with a collection reportedly numbering 150 machines. By this point the Morgan had lost its original JAP engine, although its chassis and major running gear remained remarkably well preserved.

The car was subsequently acquired by Joe Wilson in March 1972 for $200, beginning one of the most significant chapters in its history. Wilson was a highly experienced Australian vintage competitor and embarked upon an extensive restoration, fitting an Anzani engine that he had located in 1972. Once back in action, the Morgan was used extensively in historic competition, with Wilson at the wheel and his sons acting as riding mechanics, reportedly enjoying considerable success in a wide variety of historic sidecar and vintage events.

Photographs from 1979 show the Morgan following its restoration, reunited with its original owner Jim Thoms and Mitch Marks some fifty years after their 1929 success at Penrith — a wonderful link between the car’s earliest competition career and its new life in historic racing.

Further development followed. In 1987, the Morgan suffered a mechanical failure at Lakeside, breaking a cylinder barrel. The engine was subsequently sent to renowned British engineer Phil Spencer, who returned it as a specially developed 1,320cc Anzani, internally redesigned and fitted with a concentric supercharger (at the time), breathing through a large SU carburettor. The result was a particularly potent and characterful interpretation of the Morgan’s original sporting concept.

The Morgan Three Wheeler Club has known the car for many years and inspected it in August 2014. Its registrar confirmed that the chassis, steering assembly, front and rear suspension and axles appeared to be original, while also recording the history of the replacement engine and its Australian restoration. The Club recommended that the car be recognised with an age-related 1928 registration, further supporting its identity and historic significance.

In 2014, the Morgan passed into the collection of Nick Mason, joining the celebrated Ten Tenths Collection and remaining there ever since. Its presence within one of the world’s most respected collections of significant sporting and racing cars adds another fascinating chapter to an already extraordinary story.

Today, this important Morgan is running but requires recommissioning, presenting its next custodian with the opportunity to bring a genuinely historic and highly individual machine back to active use. It's no longer supercharged but the supercharger (in need of reconditioning) along with a selection of rare and valuable spares and period parts ( our vendor believes around £4/ £5,000) will form part of the sale. It's also accompanied by an extensive archive of correspondence, photographs and historical research, its story is unusually well documented, and prospective purchasers are strongly encouraged to spend time with the history file.

From its first competitive outings in Australia in 1929, through Joe Wilson’s restoration and subsequent historic racing career, to its long-standing place in the Ten Tenths Collection, this is far more than simply a rare early Morgan. It is a remarkably well-documented survivor with genuine period competition history, fascinating mechanical development and provenance connecting some of the most dedicated enthusiasts and custodians in the Morgan world.