The car is now at the Museum and it is the son of our friend Andreas Nicolaou who owns the museum, Argiris Nicolaou who calls us and tells us that he is looking for the Turkish Cypriot owner of this car.
He also would send us the photos of the “Morgan” car that is now exhibited at the museum, as well as an old advertisement showing that Sabri Tahir was the dealer of the “Morgan Cars”. We thank him for these…
Was an expensive car
Argiris Nicolaou tells us what he found out or heard about the “Morgan” car:
*** He says we can see what the car looks like in the photos he had sent to us. He believes that this car was until 1974, in the area of the Limassol Chiftlikoudia area and that it belonged to a Turkish Cypriot. He heard that this Turkish Cypriot who owned the “Morgan” car, could have been a doctor.
*** Argiris Nicolaou tells us that “It was not easy to have such a car in those days. It was an expensive car…” He also tells us that Sabri Tahir, a famous Turkish Cypriot businessman used to import the “Morgan” cars in those years and that he had found an advertisement of Sabri Tahir in one of the Turkish Cypriot newspapers as a dealer of these cars. In the old newspaper advertisement, with the signature of Sabri Tahir, it says that the “Morgan” cars have arrived and those who had ordered them should go and pick them up from him in the next few days…
Myself, my husband Zeki Erkut and Andreas Nikolaou with the 'Morgan' car three years ago at the museum.
*** According to Argiris Nicolaou, this car was left abandoned somewhere after the Turkish Cypriots left Limassol after the war in 1974… And that decades after, his father Andreas Nicolaou would buy this car from a state auction. When he bought the car, it was in very bad condition…
*** Argiris Nicolaou says that he did a lot of investigations about whom this car might have belonged to but could not get any results and asks my help to find out if possible, who owned the car. “In this way” he says, “we would find out the whole history of the car…”
We had seen the car
Three years ago, together with my heart comrade Zeki Erkut, we had visited the Cyprus Classic Motorcycle Museum briefly and the owner of this private museum had given us information while we toured the museum and looked at the old motorcycles. We had even taken a photo in front of the “Morgan” car together with my heart comrade Zeki Erkut and our friend Andreas Nicolaou, without really grasping the significance of this car. Only now, the son of Andreas, Argiris brings to our attention the significance of this “Morgan” car. We thank him a lot for contacting us and sharing what he found out, as well as the photos of the car.
Old advert from the General Agent Sabri Tahir.
The Morgan cars
According to the Wikipedia, “Morgan” car company was founded by Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan in 1910. Mr. Morgan would leave the “Great Western Railway” and founded a car sales and service garage at Malvern Link. According to Wikipedia, “In 1909 he designed and built a car for his own use. Previously he developed the first independent front suspension in the engineering shop of Malvern College. He began production a year later and the company prospered. Production of three-wheelers approached 1000 by World War I and quickly resumed with both racing and touring models. Morgan's first four-wheeler came in 1935 with three-wheelers phased out in 1952. Morgan continued to run it until he died at age 77 in 1959.”
Morgan's first four-wheeler, designated by the factory as the 4/4 because it had a four-cylinder engine and four wheels, was released to the public in 1936 and the three wheelers were gradually phased out until 1952.
More on the history of these cars HERE
And in the article at “Discovery” under the title “Timeless Craftsmanship: The History of Morgan Cars” it says:
“Founded in 1909 by visionary engineer Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan, known affectionately as HFS, the genesis of the Morgan Motor Company was, by comparison to the other British car marques that emerged at the start of the twentieth century, modest. From a factory in the Worcestershire spa town of Malvern, HFS was determined to create something different, and this spirit led to the birth of the company’s first cars – the iconic three-wheelers. These vehicles, with their unique design and engineering, rapidly garnered attention, propelling the Morgan Motor Company to the forefront of the automotive world.
Initially, Morgan automobile history starts at the very dawn of the motoring age. Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan, or HFS to his friends, left a job at Great Western Railway to build cars. With his friend Leslie Bacon, they set up a garage, primarily to service Wolseley and Darracq cars. Yet Morgan was an engineer at heart and built a single-seat three-wheeler for his own use, with no intention of putting it into production.
Considered a cyclecar – three-wheelers avoided tax on cars as they were classified as motorcycles… What became known as the Runabout remained in production until the outbreak of World War II in dozens of different configurations, including incredibly successful racing models, the first Aero model in 1920, the Super Aero in 1927 and a four-seater family version called the F-4. They even made a three-wheeled delivery van.
In 1936, when the Road Tax Fund was abolished and it was no longer a tax advantage to having three wheels, Morgan branched out with the astonishing 4/4. In the history of Morgan cars, the 4/4 is the undoubted superstar.”
Erdem Oskar from Avdimou
As soon as I publish the photos and the story told to me by Argiris Nicolaou on my pages at the YENIDUZEN newspaper, I start getting calls and messages. A reader claims that the car belonged to Sabri Tahir but I tell him he was the importer of “Morgan” cars, not necessarily the owner of this particular car.
The old 'Morgan' car at the Cyprus Classic Motorcycle Museum.
Sevgi Oskar who is the grandchild of Erdem Oskar, a well known hotel owner and businessman who passed away a few years ago calls me and tells me that the car might belong to her grandfather. He had it during the 1958s… Erdem Oskar was from Avdimou and he also was running a “Rent-a-Car” at Episkopi. After 1974, he had a hotel in Kyrenia called “Oskar Hotel”.
According to the daughter of Erdem Oskar, Ms. Hatice, Mr. Erdem had kept this car in a garage… “I was born in 1963” she says. “He kept the car so he could give it to us when we grew up…” His daughter Hatice says that they have photos of her father Erdem Oskar, sitting in the car and promises to find them so we can publish them.
I also ask my cousin Tamer Zaim who is into classic cars and owns several of them… Tamer’s great grandfather was Ahmet Zaim from Avdimou (Evdim) and was a big landowner. Tamer says that the grandfather of Erdem Oskar was the manager of Ahmet Zaim’s properties and land and that the two families were very close. He says “Zaim” means something like an “Agha”… Tamer vaguely remembers that maybe Mr. Erdem’s brother used to stay for some time during school years in the house of his grandmother Sherife Zaim (my aunt). That there were very good relations among the two families.
Semavi Ashik, another cousin of mine who is also into classic cars also calls me and says that the number plate of the car that Erdem Oskar used was BB310. Hasan Kahvecioghlou who is a well-known journalist and who helped Erdem Oskar to write the story of his life calls next. He says the car belongs to Erdem Oskar and that I should call his wife Mrs. Neshe Oskar. “When they were engaged, Erdem Oskar had this car” he says and sends me her number… “She might even have the papers of the car” he says…
I will continue my investigations about the “Morgan” car that is now in the Cyprus Classic Motorcycle Museum in Nicosia…