Morgan Supersport 400: 396 Horses, an Ash Wood Frame, and No U.S. Import

Morgan just dropped a bomb on the boutique sports car world: the Supersport 400, their most powerful production car ever, and it’s wrapped in a design language that makes you feel like you’re driving a time machine with a turbocharger grafted onto its steering column. This isn’t some mild refresh or a cosmetic trim bump—this is Morgan taking their already-excellent Supersport and force-feeding it an extra 66 horsepower for a total of 396 hp, enough to dispatch 0-62 mph in 3.6 seconds and hit 180 mph flat-out. In other words, it drives like a car that costs significantly more than its $152,000 starting price suggests.

The Engine: Borrowed Brilliance (But With a Twist)

Here’s where things get interesting. Morgan sourced its muscle from BMW’s proven turbocharged 3.0-liter B58 inline-six—the same engine family powering everything from the M340i to the Toyota Supra to the Ineos Grenadier. It’s arguably one of the most versatile powerplants in the automotive world right now, and Morgan clearly got their hands on a spicier tune than the standard 330-hp variant you’ll find in the regular Supersport.

The Supersport 400 cranks that B58 up to 402 brake horsepower (396 in SAE net figures—hence the name), paired with a meaty 369 pound-feet of torque. That power runs through a BMW-sourced ZF eight-speed automatic with M340i gear ratios, sending everything to the rear wheels via an open differential (limited-slip available if you need to convince your Michelin Pilot Sport 5s you’re serious about cornering). Morgan even developed a high-flow performance exhaust setup to make the whole thing sound like it means business, not just look like it.

Wood, Aluminum, and the Absurdity of British Engineering

Now, before you laugh: yes, this car has an ash wood frame as its core structural component. No, this isn’t 1952. Morgan’s been doing this aluminum-bonded-to-wood trick since the Aero 8, and it works—the Supersport 400 tips the scales at roughly 2,579 pounds, which is featherweight territory for a car packing nearly 400 horsepower. That weight advantage is why a three-second sprint to 62 mph doesn’t feel completely bonkers on paper; it actually feels achievable when you’re driving something that weighs less than a Civic.

The structural approach is pure Morgan: take something ridiculous on paper, engineer it obsessively, and then wrap it in enough aluminum and carbon fiber that you can live with yourself. The result is a car that looks like it escaped from a 1960s fever dream but performs like something built in 2026. The suspension has been reworked too, featuring adjustable Nitron dampers front and rear and rejiggered geometry meant to tighten up body control—because you can’t just dump 400 horsepower into a retro roadster and hope the driver doesn’t die on corner exit.

The Interior: Where Luxury Actually Meets Restraint

Step inside and you’ll find the expected leather-and-Alcantara cocktail that defines sport-luxury in 2026, paired with something that actually feels fresh: white-on-black gauges mounted in a center cluster that doesn’t assault your eyeballs the way traditional instrument clusters do. There’s a unique stitching pattern across the seats, doors, and transmission tunnel, and Morgan even went the extra mile with a bespoke aluminum gearshift knob to replace the placeholder BMW unit that looks hilariously out of place on lesser Morgans.

It’s the kind of attention to detail that separates a car with character from a car that’s merely expensive. The Supersport 400 feels obsessed with itself in the best possible way—everything from the adjusted suspension geometry to the new front wing vents speaks to a company that actually cares whether their car drives like it looks.

The Catch: You Can’t Have One

Here’s where the fantasy ends: the Supersport 400 won’t be sold in the United States. Morgan’s U.S. lineup consists of the Plus Four and the Super 3—there’s no domestic Supersport at all, and given the company’s ongoing struggles with emissions certification and tariffs, getting this thing stateside would require more legislative gymnastics than most boutique automakers are willing to attempt. Orders are open now in the UK with production beginning in May, but unless you’ve got a residence somewhere in Europe, you’re watching this one from afar.

That’s actually kind of perfect, in a bittersweet way. Morgan has positioned the Supersport 400 as the opening act for an 18-month barrage of “bespoke and limited-run special editions,” suggesting the company is finally ready to stop playing it safe and start swinging for the fences. The irony is that most Americans who’d buy this thing probably don’t even know Morgan still exists—which might actually be the best marketing a British eccentric roadster maker could ask for.

The Supersport 400 is Morgan doing what Morgan does best: taking an absurd idea (a wood-framed supercar), executing it with Germanic precision (thank you, BMW), and wrapping the whole thing in styling that makes you forget you’re looking at something that probably shouldn’t work. At $152,000, it’s expensive. Across the Atlantic, it’s also impossible. But that’s never stopped anyone from wanting one.

Sources: Jalopnik · Car and Driver · Motor1