Morgatti proof pigs really can fly

by Bill Buys WHO’D have thought that Morgan and Bugatti once collaborated to produce a neat coupe called the Morgatti? When pigs fly, you m...

by Bill Buys

WHO’D have thought that Morgan and Bugatti once collaborated to produce a neat coupe called the Morgatti?

When pigs fly, you might say, and they do, because the car has a chrome one, sitting proudly atop its radiator --  a beautifully sculpted little piglet complete with traditional Morgan wings.

And then there’s the official ID plate – in Spanish – showing the car is a Morgatti: chassis by Morgan, body by Bugatti, motor by Ford.

The car is real, and it certainly was not a joint effort by the two famous British and French companies, but it is a beauty – and it has just sold at the Midwest Sell It Now Store in Waukesha, Wisconsin, for $32,635 (or $45,600 Aussie dollars).

The Morgatti Aerline Coupe is an intriguing car with a mysterious history and a tantalising South American connection.

It’s known that up to 20 Morgan 4/4s arrived in Argentina after WWII, but unlike the regular Morgan 4/4s with their 1122cc Coventry Climax engines and a sports body -- the Morgatti had a 2.2-litre Ford V-8 60 ‘Flathead’ beating under its bonnet and a shapely coupe body reminiscent of a Bugatti Type 57 Galibier. 

This car was from the collection of Robert ‘Kermit’ Wilson, of Lisle, Illinois, a columnist for various automotive publications and a fan of British sports cars. 

He owned and raced a very early Morgan 4/4, a 1937 model and had Jaguar XK120 coupe, and imported (from the Isle of Man) a 1937 Morgan three-wheeler with a great competition record: it won the Great Britain 3-Wheel Championship 37 times in 50 years.

He also had a 1951 MG TD, one of 25 that were built in Germany!

The Morgatti was finished in 2006 and is said to have been the last car Kermit completed. 

The coupe has an all-steel body and roof and is powered by a flathead Ford V8 - with an Offenhauser manifold and ‘Morgatti’ engraved on its flathead. 

It had been stored for an extended period of time and the sales folk at Waukesha said while it runs, it will probably need transmission work and maybe also some additional bits to make it roadworthy, adding that ‘it should be considered a project.’

Word is the Morgatti was owned by Rudi Tarantello, a wandering Italian artist living in Buenos Aires. 

His romance with Helga Hauser, a mysterious émigré who fled Germany for Argentina in 1944 ended in heartbreak — in which year we don’t know. 

But there was no word of the car for many years

The Argentinian diplomatic number plates implies the car was taken into the US by someone in the Argentine Consulate. 

As with any legend, we may never know the truth.

For decades, the coupe was a phantom, although drawings and photographs of the car with its unique bodywork surfaced occasionally. 

There is one piece of sales literature, but it shows only an illustration. 

When the Morgatti finally re-emerged in 1999, it was snapped up by Kermit and reborn in 2006 — a featherweight machine weighing only 767kg.

It was painted a special oxidised green/blue colour in honour of Hellé Nice, the ‘Bugatti Queen,’ who won the first Women’s Grand Prix held in June, 1929. 

Every detail tells a story, some plausible, some impossible, like the car’s gearshift lever: allegedly crafted from an artificial hip joint. 

We’ll never know the full story of this one-of-a-kind 1948 Morgatti Aerline Coupe, but whoever bought it also got some documentation, a car cover, a clean Illinois title – and a car with a history he might never unravel.

 

Hellé Nice, the ‘Bugatti Queen,’ who won the first Women’s Grand Prix.

 

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