Hangar works #2 – The Speedy Marmots badges

The 3-Wheeler is a peculiar vehicle. No doubt about it. And despite it’s a true Morgan with undeniable classic looks, it’s so unique it allows to personalize yours in many ways. You can buy your 3-Wheeler and make it look like a superb rat steampunk machine, or a RAF fighter, or a super elegant classic… the combinations are so many, and all look so nice on that car, that choosing your style is not so easy.

AM and I finally fall for a more classic look for our 3-Wheeler. The Morgan Sport Green colour combined with the quilted dark brown leather, the wood panel dashboard and steering wheel, all the chrome and the Union Jack bonnet badges make a nice elegant classic base. And few decals, as the white stripe along the bonnet and boot, the Danger Afterburn stickers in white and the RAF inspired MOG logo give a light sporty wink. But the whole looks much more classic than a steampunk machine.

Looking at all the accessories available for the 3-Wheeler we see there is a nice small badge bar, that once installed stays just on the top of the front plate.

In our opinion, the new 3-Wheeler is not the kind of car to put on some vintage badges, but we though it could be fun to design and put our own badge.

So, in our second trip to Malvern, in October 2019, we bought a badge bar for our 3-Wheeler, among of other accessories and goodies.

The MMC factory tour was really nice, guided by our Talk Morgan forum friend Graham. The best possible guide!

The new CX platform, base of the new Plus Six and Plus Four, looks really amazing!

When we entered the 3-Wheeler workshop, we had the best possible surprise: our 3-Wheeler was in the assembly line! Still naked, but the frame had the engine, coupling and gearbox already mounted!

Back home, we started designing a badge that, with sense of humor, identifies us. After many silly ideas, we ended up with the fabulous, magnificent and unique Speedy Marmots Bomb Squadron badge!

And as the badge bar can fit more badges, and we believed a lonely one would look poor, we though to add a couple more badges: the air force cockades of our beloved countries.

Then, we needed to find someone who could make the badges from our designs. We searched the Internet and asked in the Talk Morgan forum and ended up finding a really nice man, Dave, who has a nice web page – Royale Enamel Ltd (www.royale-enamel.com) – and makes customized badges.

We can’t be happier with the result! Dave made an excellent job! The detail of the badges is excellent. You can see the fur and the whiskers on the Marmot face! Of course, they’re not enamel vintage-style badges, but machine printed. But again, the result is really nice, and personalized, as we wanted.

In January 2020, I checked with our DGT (the traffic authority here in Spain) if our 3-Wheeler has the right to carry a DGT badge identifying the emissions’ level of the car. And consequently, be allowed to enter and park (depending on how ecological the car is) in some zones of Madrid center.

Good news! Despite the S&S is not a super eco-friendly engine, the restrictive exhausts and low consumption really certify the 3-Wheeler as EU4. So yes, we can have a badge! Normally you must stick the badge (it’s a decal) on your windshield in a visible place, for the authorities to check you’re good to drive and park in the city center. But there is no way we put a huge sticker in our tiny windshields! So again, we contacted Dave and he made us a badge out of a scanned copy of the official sticker. Good enough for the authorities to check the car can enter the city center and park there. Nice customized badge job again!

Finally, with the badge bar just installed in our 3-Wheeler, we installed the four badges above the plate.

But due to the vibrations typical of the 3-Wheeler, and despite the badges are tightened to the max, they end up losing the verticality. We tried to fix this problem with rubber tape between the clip and the badge bar, but not good enough. So we ended up drilling the badge clip and the bar, and put a rivet in it.

Also, pondering about the existence of human sub-species such as the badge-stealing-baboon, we decided to drill a second hole between the clip and the badge bottom plate. Both problems solved!

The two rivets are the best solution we could think of. The badges keep still and if someone wants to steal them, he’ll have to do a real mess to break them.

Now our 3-Wheeler is properly identified as a fighter of the Speedy Marmots Bomb Squadron!