The automotive world’s favorite old tinkering uncle, Morgan, has a new and substantially improved iteration of their Plus Four sports car, the Morgan Supersport, which we told you all about earlier today. The car still manages to keep Morgan’s old-school British charm while making substantial modernizations and updates, but it also reveals some key areas of automotive design that are seemingly completely beyond Morgan’s grasp. I’m talking about cupholders.
Yes, cupholders. Those nearly-ubiquitous cylindrical volumes of nothing built into your car, usually within easy arm’s reach and designed to hold a vessel full of the beverage of your choice, which I’m guess-hoping is piping-hot Yoo-Hoo. Morgan is still fairly new to the concept of cupholders in cars, only releasing their first one back in 2022 on the Morgan Super 3.
Morgan seems to have accepted, perhaps grudgingly, that people in cars may enjoy having something to drink, and need a place to store those drinks, so there is a cupholder option in the new Supersport. It’s not cheap though. Look:
Yep, £120 – about $155 in Freedom Dollars – for a cupholder. Just one. And where is it? Morgan decided the best place to put it would be here:
Do you see it? Lemme point it out:
Yes, that’s where Morgan thought a good place for a cupholder would be. In the very middle front of the passenger’s seat. I know the interior of a Morgan is a fairly compact space, but that still seems like a literal and figurative bit of a reach for a cupholder. There was nowhere on the dash or in the center console for a cupholder? Anywhere?
I mean, aftermarket companies have been selling Morgan cupholders for quite a while now, like these that fit on the door and cost about £110 pounds less than Morgan’s official one:
I guess that’s not good enough for Morgan, who decided that the best way for a driver to get access to a drink would be to have to grope around between their passenger’s legs. Because, let’s be very clear, that’s where the drink holder is holding that drink: in crotch-adjacent real estate:
There are so many weird decisions going on here, I’m not sure where to start. Only one person in the car gets to have a beverage, and if it’s the driver then they have to grab it from between the passenger’s legs. More reason to have a lid on whatever you’re drinking, especially if it’s hot, as thighs are in real danger here.
Is this just Morgan’s way of helping to encourage sexy interactions, as your fingers graze inner thigh when you reach for your 32oz Mountain Dew, eyes locked with one another, telegraphing raw, humid passion as you carom down some windy backroad?
Or is this just Morgan’s way of reminding you that their interior accessory people have yet to meet another human being, but they’re very much looking forward to it?
The location would be good for some sort of in-car urine management system, at least, though in some ways that’s the opposite of a cupholder. Still, if that was the intended purpose, at least it would make some sort of sense. Because, as it stands, this may be the most ridiculous place for a cupholder I’ve ever seen in a production – even limited production – car.
I’ll reach out to Morgan to see if there’s some brilliant reason for this that’s escaping me, but until then, I think I’m just going to enjoy the profound bafflement of it all.
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Crotch-adjacent maybe intentionally to help keep the coffee warm? 😉
If you need a cupholder in your new Morgan you’re buying the wrong car!
Just came here to say that an extra OEM cup holder for the i3 is similarly priced. But at least can be placed in 4 different positions in the center console.
I’ve run across several British sports car enthusiasts who get downright offended by cupholders, like the fact that you’re not salivating from getting to drive this car is an insult to the car. That said I’ve seen several aftermarket seats that size and place the hole for the antisubmarine belt so if you aren’t using that belt you can stick a cold drink right up against your balls to help compensate for the lack of AC. So this placement doesn’t seem too weird compared to some of the ones I’ve seen.
More costly and inconvenient than a cup holder for an old Saab. I used one of the ones that you put in the driver’s side window track. Maybe something like that or better could be 3D printed nowadays.
When the 2nd gen Citroën C5 launched in 2008-ish, the otherwise lovely interior was completely bereft of cupholders. My former colleague and editor asked why they’d made such an obvious omission, as all their competitors had cupholders.
Citroën’s answer: “You see, sir, you’re not supposed to drink and drive – but rather enjoy your champagne at arrival”
The Morgan dealer when I send a request for the most abominable eye bleach configuration all over a silly cup holder.
I think their assumption here is either:
This cup holder is for the passenger only. The driver is not intended to use this.
OR
This is for a solo driver who almost never has any passengers.
I am Franco British, been driving legally for 40 something years, and illegally for longer than that, and can honestly say I have never drunk from a cup in a car.
From bottles yes, often, and French cars have for 20 years always had somewhere to put a 1.5 litre water bottle, but a cup?
Just weird.
Okay nerd.
Upvote for your username, although I must say Portillo’s isn’t nearly as good as it used to be since Dick sold it. Italian beef with extra giardiniera FTW.
I often drink from a large water bottle in the car, but the problem ends up being steering while opening it. An American style large cup with a straw(in our household stainless steel and glass) solves that problem.
Lane keep which my commuter car has also solves that problem.
I wish more cars sold in the US had a nice place to store a water bottle.
Perhaps Morgans have a tradition of being driven by creepy old men that we weren’t previously aware of, or it’s their way of giving the finger to all “the Yank’s ridiculous cupholder requests”.
It kind of reminds me of the old response to people grousing about the uncentered steering wheels on some Italian sportscars, “it’s to keep you focused on the driving experience”. The fact that this model doesn’t have a stick would make that pretty ironic.
*two fingers… Since they’re British.