Hundreds Of Products Ready Today. Dispatch/Collection Customer Question: Roll Cages For A 1976 Morgan 4/4 Two Seater
Customer question, Morgan 4/4
Straight answer first, because it is a yes: Safety Devices build a dedicated Morgan range and we stock it. Bolt-in rear bars, no welding, seat belt mounting bushes included, and they have been making them for these cars a very long time.
The bit worth reading is which one. Morgan changed chassis and body more often than the shape lets on, so Safety Devices index their Morgan bars by a bar number instead of a model name, and a 1976 two seater sits right on the line between two of them. Here is the whole range, what separates them, and the one thing Cameron will need from you before anything is ordered.
- Yes, Safety Devices make a Morgan range and we stock it, from £530.40
- They are bolt-in rear bars, so no welding and no cutting the body
- Seat belt mounting bushes are included in the bar
- Safety Devices index them by bar number, M000 through M008, not by model name
- A two seat 4/4 sits between two of those numbers, so we confirm yours by chassis number
- Black powdercoat as standard, with grey, blue, silver, white, red or unpainted on request
The Morgan range, and what the bar numbers mean
Safety Devices have been building for Morgan long enough that their catalogue reads like a history of the chassis. Every bar has a number, and that number is tied to the body and chassis it was drawn around, which is why you will see one model name against two different bars and two model names against one. This is the range as we stock it today.
| Bar | What it is drawn for | Type | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| M000 | Plus 4 two seater and 4/4 two seater, M16 engine | 4 point bolt-in rear | £530.40 |
| M002 | Plus 4 four seater and 4/4 four seater, Ford Crossflow, 1968 to 1992 | 4 point bolt-in rear, single diagonal | £580.80 |
| M001 | Plus 8 two seater, and Plus 4 with the T16 engine on the Plus 8 chassis | 4 point bolt-in rear | £580.80 |
| M003 | As M001 but around 100mm taller | Cross diagonal and harness bar | £751.20 |
| M008 | Plus 4 two seater, the 2010 to 2020 car | Cross diagonal and harness bar, listed for road use | £715.20 |
| [object Object] | |||
| Custom Cages | Morgan Plus 8, international multipoint | Weld-in multipoint | £1,304.40 |
Every Safety Devices bar here includes bushes for the seat belt mounts, and comes black powdercoated unless you ask for something else.
Which one fits a 1976 two seater
Here is where we ask you a question instead of taking your money, because your car sits between two entries in that table.
The M000 is the two seater bar, and Safety Devices list it against the 4/4 two seater. Their description qualifies it with the M16 engine though, which is a much later car than yours. The M002 names the Ford Crossflow engine and the 1968 to 1992 window, which is your car exactly, but it is drawn for the four seater body.
So a 1976 two seater with the Kent crossflow falls between the printed descriptions. We are not going to guess and post you a bar that fouls the rear wing, so what happens instead is simple: send us the chassis number, we put it to Safety Devices, and we come back with the bar number they confirm for your car. That is a phone call and an email, not a project.
If it seems odd that a car this well documented has no neat answer, there is a reason for it. Morgan never catalogued a roll bar for these cars themselves. Their own early cars parts book has no roll over bar part number in it anywhere, and the tonneau covers cut around a roll bar for a two seat 4/4 only begin in 1986. A bar on a 1970s Morgan has always been an aftermarket job, which is exactly why this is a chassis number question and not a catalogue one.
Where a bar actually mounts on a Morgan
This is the part that makes Morgans different from everything else we sell cages for, and it is worth understanding before you buy anything.
Your 4/4 is a steel ladder chassis with an ash body frame sitting on top of it, panelled in steel and aluminium. Everybody knows the Morgan wood story, but the useful version is knowing where the strength is. The chassis rails and the suspension mounts are steel. The frame carrying the body is ash and ply, the door pillars and sill boards included, and the rear wheel arches are laminated ash with steel inner panels over them. What that means for a roll bar is that the load wants to reach the chassis.
The systems that do this properly bolt a base frame down onto the chassis rails, fore and aft of the rear axle, picking up the wheel arch as well, with small notches cut in the woodwork to let the legs through. The hoop then bolts to that frame. It is also why owners consistently report the back of the car feeling tighter afterwards, because a frame tied into the chassis at four points is stiffening the car as well as protecting the driver.
That is why the Morgan bars exist as their own numbered range instead of a universal kit. A generic bolt-in cage assumes a steel floor to weld reinforcement plates to, and your car does not have one. The Morgan-specific bars are drawn around the Morgan structure instead, which is also why the fitment question at the top of this page matters so much. Motorsport UK write their own mounting rules to cover exactly this, defining a reinforcement plate as fixing to the bodyshell or the chassis structure, so a separate-chassis car like yours is very much accounted for.
On the job itself, owners who have fitted these report the best part of a day for a first attempt, and less the second time. It is bolt-in, but it is bolt-in on a hand built car, so nobody rushes it. Two practical things worth knowing before you start: the plywood rear shelf normally needs cutting around the new brackets, and a tonneau cover wants reshaping around the tubes. Neither is difficult, and between them they are what actually takes the time.
What the diagonal changes
Most of these bars come in two builds, and this is the one decision you make yourself instead of by chassis number.
A plain hoop with no diagonal is what people fit to a road car that goes on track occasionally. It looks right in a Morgan and it is the lighter, simpler thing to live with. Safety Devices list that build for road use.
Add the single fixed diagonal and the same bar becomes the homologated build, which Safety Devices supply with a certificate. If you are entering anything with scrutineering, that certificate is the document you will be asked for, so that is the build you want. Motorsport UK call these ROPS and the rules sit in Chapter 7 Appendix 3 of the Blue Book, and individual championships add their own requirements on top, so check what your series asks for before you choose.
Worth knowing if competing is on the cards. The Morgan Challenge asks for a rollover bar to Motorsport UK requirements and exempts only cars of Periods A to E, which stop well before 1976, so your car would need one. The Morgan Sports Car Club speed championship is simpler still: a rollover hoop for anything built after 1958. Motorsport UK put sports cars up to 2000cc in the basic rollbar category, which is what a 1599cc 4/4 is, and there is no blanket exemption for older cars unless the car holds a valid FIA Historic Technical Passport. Tell us which series you are looking at and we will spec to that.
The bars we stock
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From £442.00 Excl. VATKlarna ReadySelect options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
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From £484.00 Excl. VATKlarna ReadySelect options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
Common questions on Morgan bars
Do I have to cut or weld anything?
No. Everything in the Safety Devices Morgan range above is a bolt-in rear bar. The Custom Cages multipoint is the weld-in option, and that is a different kind of job for a different kind of car.
Will it work with the hood up?
Usually, and on a car of your age there is a tidy way it tends to go: owners of the older multi hoop hoods report the bar taking the place of the middle hood hoop, so the hood still goes up over the top of it. It does depend on the bar and on which hood you have, so tell us you want to keep using it when you enquire and we will put that to Safety Devices alongside the chassis number.
Can I have it in a colour other than black?
Yes. Black powdercoat is standard and Safety Devices also do grey, blue, silver, white and red, or unpainted if you would sooner finish it yourself. Say so on the order.
Does the bar give me somewhere to mount harnesses?
The bars include bushes for the seat belt mounts, and the M003 and M008 builds are listed with a harness bar. If harnesses are part of the plan, mention it up front, because it changes which build suits you.
I have a four seater 4/4 instead. Is that easier?
It is, as it happens. The M002 names the four seat 4/4 with the Ford Crossflow engine across 1968 to 1992, so that one is a straight answer at £580.80.
Do you fit them?
Bring the car to us and we will talk it through with you. These are bolt-in bars and plenty of owners fit their own, but a Morgan is not a car anybody wants to improvise on, so a conversation first is always worth it.
What if none of the standard bars suits my car?
Then we go bespoke, and it is a well trodden route on Morgans. Custom Cages build to order and already make Morgan hoops for the trade, so we can put a made to measure enquiry to them with your chassis number and measurements. If the car is going to be scrutineered, that is also the route that ends with a certificate for the finished bar.
Send us the chassis number
Ring 0115 9893488, or email the chassis number of the 4/4 with the wheel arch measurement and a photograph behind the seats, and Cameron will get the bar number confirmed by Safety Devices before you spend anything. Once we know which bar your car takes, the rest is picking the diagonal and the colour, and you are looking at somewhere around £530 to £580 for the bar itself.
If it turns out nothing standard suits a 1976 two seater, say the word and we will take it down the made to measure route instead. Either way you get a straight answer from us, which is the whole point of asking before you buy.