Don't panic, though, some things don't change at Morgan and as well as the car's overall appearance, which harks back to its first post-World War Two roadsters, there's also the body construction, which continues to be hand-beaten aluminium panels draped over a frame of English ash – dipped in Cuprinol, of course, for longevity.
This, then, is the new generation of Morgans, cleaner, lighter and fit for the 21st century, and this first example is the Plus Six, named in homage to the 1969 Plus 8 model, which had a Rover/Buick V8 engine, as Peter Morgan, boss of the family-owned company and son of its founder HFS Morgan, said a straight-six engine wouldn't fit under the traditional long louvered bonnet.
Well it does now, because under the bonnet of this new car (which you might have spotted speeding up the Hill at the recent Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard) is BMW's 335bhp, 3.0-litre, single twin-scroll turbocharged B58 straight-six, coupled to a ZF eight-speed automatic transmission driving the rear wheels.
It's one of the finest 'sixes' in production and gives the Plus Six a 166mph top speed, 0-62mph acceleration in 4.2 seconds, combined fuel economy of 38.2mpg (I saw 28mpg on a mixed route) and CO2 emissions of 170g/km thanks to a kerb weight of just 1,075. Fully emissions compliant, this engine will allow the Plus Six to be sold in a lot of countries where the outgoing and thirstier Aero models attracted punitive taxation.
Morgan's chief engineer John Beech (ex of Lotus) says it's a darn-close fit, closer even than the big BMW V8 which was in the outgoing Aero models. Engine ancillaries had to be re-machined and remounted to clear the bonnet and the exhaust completely redesigned from a single 88mm-bore pipe into four smaller tail pipes, to allow sufficient ground clearance.
"The cooling system has been the biggest challenge," he says. There are new cooling nostrils at the front of the bonnet, extra bonnet louvres and new louvres at the side of the car. The suspension is a new double-wishbone MacPherson-strut derived system at the front with a rear four-link set up and it runs on newly design 19-inch wheels.