pininfarina and morgan unveil their coach-built ‘midsummer’ car with sculpted wooden cabin

coach-built vehicle ‘MIDSUMMER’ by pininfarina and morgan

Pininfarina S.p.A. and Morgan Motor Company team up for the new open-top coachbuilding car, Midsummer, welcoming back the heyday of the European barchetta styles. The height of the summer, of bright days and warm nights, inspired the two car manufacturers to conceive the Midsummer coachbuilding roadster as an open-top vehicle. The roofless car design exposes the hand-formed wooden interior and aluminum body panels.

It was a first for Morgan, who has been concealing the wood inside the body frame. The use of wood is visible from the get-go, creating a shoulder line around the cockpit. The design takes cues from boat building, with the use of hand-shaped wooden structures around the cabin. Teak wood and hundreds of thin layers of it are laminated together for each section in the cabin, and each car has nine unique teak sections that require over 30 hours to create. The dashboard tops alone already have 126 layers of teak, and the door tops have 120 layers each.

images courtesy of Pininfarina S.p.A and Morgan Motor Company

Pininfarina’s ‘fuoriserie’ marks its collaboration with morgan

Looking at the Midsummer coachbuilding car from the rear, the proportions, new surface design and shoulder line shift and flow with the way they look, depending on where the viewers are looking from. These designs were taken from the pages of the classic Pininfarina design books from the late 1930s and early 1940s. The car retains the familiar Morgan wing shape but with subtle changes for better aerodynamics, and the wings are designed to reduce air turbulence, especially in front of the wheels, to improve the car’s performance.

The Midsummer coachbuilding comes equipped with 19-inch wheels that are lighter than previous models, and it uses Michelin Pilot Sport 5 tires, which can offer good performance and a classic look. These wheels are also expected to be used in future Morgan models. Hand-formed lower sills add a sense of volume and blend with the car’s surroundings, and its new headlight units and a redesigned grille may improve the vehicle’s airflow and cooling.

A longer tail forms part of the design too, reminiscent of classic Pininfarina designs, and the Pininfarina badge is placed on a panel, highlighting the design collaboration. This emblem and its position mark a significant moment for Pininfarina. The car manufacturer typically plants ‘Design by Pininfarina’ badges, but to mark their collaboration with Morgan, a brand mark with the text ‘fuoriserie’ (or ‘out of series’) is applied, a first for Pininfarina.

there will only be 50 Midsummer coachbuilding cars to be produced

‘piano key’ style vents to let the hot air out of the engine

Pininfarina and Morgan place a long bonnet for the Midsummer coachbuilding to help drivers see where the front wheels are, aiding their precision when they drive the car. The traditional louvers are replaced by a series of ‘piano key’ style vents to let the hot air out of the engine. Analogue dials have been designed for Midsummer alone, colored in a soft off-white to complement the car’s warm and wooden cabin design.

Even the steering wheel is revamped, now forged using a solid aluminum center. Midsummer also benefits from a Sennheiser audio system with new dashboard control, and albeit with these design elements, the vehicle only weighs 1,000 kilos in total. Morgan says that the number of hand-formed elements around the Midsummer Coachbuilding is higher than its other models. Take the hand-beaten aluminum body panels, which take more than 250 hours to produce. Because of this, each vehicle produced will take longer to progress through Morgan’s Pickersleigh Road factory when production begins in the third quarter of 2024.

As of publishing the story, there will only be 50 Midsummer coachbuilding cars to be produced, all of which have been sold to their respective customers during a series of preview sessions. The production in 2024 coincides with Morgan’s 115th year, making the arrival of this collaboration with Pininfarina a double celebration. The manufacturing will conclude in 2025, and Midsummer’s first public debut is expected at the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed in July.

the use of wood is visible from the get-go, creating a shoulder line around the cockpit