A Morgan Three Wheeler Road Trip Kickstarted My Mental Health Journey

My codriver, Australian journalist Noelle Faulkner, described the Morgan as the ultimate YOLO car. It has no real function as a car. OK, it’ll get you from A to B, but with little space, no roof, and a wheel missing. There is no heater. Being built by hand and British, you can be forgiven for expecting this to turn into a tale of woe and roadside breakdowns. Put those fears mostly away.

I’d been working in Lisbon for a month when I decided to drive the Mog down the quick way (ferry from Portsmouth to Santander, highway all the way, about 660 miles of solo Mogging). Until that point, it had been tucked up for the month I was out there, ready for the off. The weather had been typically Portuguese for my visit – sun, nary a cloud, a gentle breeze to take the edge off the heat – until, of course, it was time to drive the open top car. Lisbon had a torrential downpour. It was hideous. Noelle, an actual Australian, had been torn away from her summer for this. This was far from an ideal start. Still, we put a brave face on, headed to Morgan’s Portugal HQ, thanked the wonderful Jorge (who’d looked after the motor), rigged the car up, and headed out into the drizzle.

A little context to this bizarre case of the stupids. Since I left university, my sole focus has been my career. This has come at the cost of friendships, relationships, family, everything. Missed weddings, parties, social stuff... You know the asshat friend in movies and TV shows that put work ahead of everything? I was that jackass. I was single-minded and wanted to write stuff about cars regardless of what else was going on. I didn’t take holidays, there was no work/life balance to speak of.

Now obviously the super glamorous world of driving cars for money is a joy to take part in, but for me there was no break from shoot to shoot, or car to car. I wanted to have all of the fun, to tell all the stories, and to collect drives in glamorous things like I was playing Pokémon Yellow again.

One day I snapped in a big way – my mental health took a hideous nosedive and I was actively looking to make the brain pain stop. Five years on I’m in a decent place, I’ve recovered a work/life balance, see my friends, and don’t miss weddings any more. Getting from there to here took a ton of time, and plenty of dives back to the depths. This trip was supposed to be a celebration of sorts - a leap back to freedom to see what the world had to offer with a good friend at your side. And, as I know now, it showed that I still had a hell of a long way to go.

Armed with a vintage-style camera to document what the vintage-style car would get up to, we immediately found that it’s damn near impossible to be unhappy in the Three Wheeler. Its little face, burbly noise, and, well, interesting handling characteristics make it hilarious at any speed. In the dry it enjoys understeering, in the wet it’ll lose traction and make you look like Chris Harris at 6 mph. Once you’ve figured out the quirks it’s one of the most joyous cars you’ll ever drive. Despite looking like a bathtub with a face, it’s surprisingly comfy, too, thanks to soft suspension. You can cruise in it without getting a numb arse.

Cars like the Three Wheeler aren’t about comfort, or even dynamic brilliance (the newer Super 3 is much better at being a car though). They’re about FUN. Not just fun for the occupants, but for everyone who sees it. Hurling ourselves along the roads between Lisbon and Sintra, even in the wet, people craned their necks to see what was going on. Who are these people? What are they driving? Why are they driving it? How is it not full of water? The love for it means people let you out of junctions to have a better look, or just gawp and whip out their phones to take pictures. Not only was it bringing us joy, but other people as well. And, unlike in the UK where it’s not unheard of to have people swing in front of you at speed so passengers can get a better look, people were broadly respectful and safe while taking pictures on the highway.

When the weather was good the car was pretty much perfect. Sun shining, engine noise bouncing off the trees, an ally at your side, there’s a calming energy to it all despite the cacophony. The din fades in your ears, the world itself opens up, troubles are forgotten, and, even for a moment, you’re in the happiest of happy places. I’d say it was like floating, but then a pothole jars one of the three wheels and you snap out of it. Like dropping your toast on the floor, or when you realize you’ve made a tiny error at work. This too shall, or should, pass.

Bad weather, as I’ve mentioned, is a huge pain, but not world ending. Rain is laughed at, wind deflected by a good shearling coat, and in the event of a hail storm (it happened) you laugh like a loon and carry on. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. Or at least scream a bit.

See, with no roof to hand your weather protection is either a helmet (which we didn’t bring because fools/no space in the car), your hair/scalp, or a bobble hat. When the hail hit, all was dry, a little gray maybe, but nothing out of the ordinary. My hat kept my scalp warm, coat pulled up to cover my face, and goggles kept my eyeballs safe. At first it felt like rain, then... it felt like pain. The one tiny exposed bit of face, the bridge of my nose, took a pounding from the tiny little ice-bastards at 70 mph. We didn’t have much of it, maybe 30 seconds, but it was enough to get us laughing about the absurdity of the trip. Any more might have been less fun.

Stopping in small towns along the first half of our journey meant we could sample tiny bites of each place. Sintra’s stunning art and gardens, Coimbra’s Roman architecture and begowned students wandering the streets (the university garb is straight out of Hogwarts), the surfer’s paradise of Peniche, and Espinho’s beautiful sunset offsetting its truly hideous casino. Aside from the genuinely harrowing experience of the casino, each little nibble of culture was a breath of mental fresh air.

Despite the bartender in Espinho doing his best to make his bar the most memorable bit of the trip thanks to free shots for being new in town (Bombar, you’re awesome), it wasn’t the locations that made that first week. It was the journey itself. We’d be in the car for three, four, five hours at a time. Talking, pulling over to take in some scenery, enjoying the car on country roads, driving it properly, and having a ball. It might sound like a hideous way to spend time, but it was only when each leg of the journey was done that the effects of driving something so silly for so long made themselves evident (exhaustion, mostly). There’s a physicality to it that, if you’ll excuse the old mannishness, you just don’t get with modern cars. Switches click, panels rattle, its woeful turning circle means your arms get a workout when you need to park. By the time you’re out of it and heading for a comfy hotel bed you’re ready for a nap. Or a beer.

Every time we stopped we were surrounded by people wanting to know about it and take pictures. The memory that’ll stay with me until the day I die is one of passing though a tiny village. A bunch of kids were being led back to school by their teacher, saw us and started cheering, setting off another set on a playground over the street. Pure, unfettered joy being thrown at us. It was infectious.

During the melee of cultural nibbles I found myself, for the first time in a long time, forgetting about work. This, for a workaholic, depressive, anxiety-ridden lump of human, was a huge deal. I was able to live in a moment and stay there without wondering what the next project is, what the next shoot would be, or which car I was crossing off my mental PokéDex.

It was freeing.

All that mattered was the trip. I’d not experienced anything quite like it in about a decade. It was here that all the things I’d missed came creeping in. A guilt about a skipped dinner, weekend away, or appointment — I still keenly feel missing my oldest friend’s wedding because there was only one specific day to shoot some derivation of Porsche in a piss wet Wales. Why on earth had I missed something so important to make something to make strangers on the internet click ‘like’? I’d seen what life could be like, and I regretted not seeing it sooner.

The constant movement and late finishes took their toll. While Portugal isn’t huge, not taking the highway meant that we’d find ourselves taking longer, prettier routes. However, the longer routes meant we arrived later at each destination and what with being in the sun all day we were more than a little wiped on arrival, so we’d take a little longer to get ready to go see a town, then end up staying out later, which meant a later start, and then... just being tired all the time.

It was ideal, then, that a weekend in Porto was on the cards. Before finding our accommodation for the weekend we were due to meet up with the team from the Porto Photography Festival. They’d heard we were coming and wanted to take some pics of the car around town. It was ace to fly around the streets of Porto, stuff on the car, waving at people waving at us from the street (like discount royals). It was less ace when a child tried to climb on the back of the car to hitch a ride, but them’s the breaks where there’s a language barrier.

The Photo Festival team blagged us into an area by Ponte Luis I. Normally pedestrianized and guarded by cops, the street we found ourselves on had a great view of the bridge, the port wineries, and the place the tourist busses stop. Outside of a Singer at Goodwood, I’d never seen a car so quickly mobbed. It was utterly bizarre, but joyous. No one hated on it (audibly at least), no one jumped in/on it, they wanted to know what it was and get their picture. It made their days a little brighter, in turn making mine better too. Until it took a turn. Pulling out of a car park, one that I’d deliberately taken an angle to get into, I got a little overzealous with getting back on the road and wasn’t as careful leaving. The car moved forward and then CLANG... THUD. I knew what I’d done. Things that should be purple are now silver, right down to the tub. I’d fucked up, and I felt a pang of guilt for the poor car.

What happened in Porto over the weekend is mostly a blur of tapas and Port, but not moving for a few nights was rather pleasant. One of the few downsides to the whole no roof/doors thing is windburn, and giving it a rest was most excellent. Was the windburn a mark of honor? Or big red band of shame? Who cares.

After a week on the road, and a weekend stop in Porto we were set to head further north. We had a week to get to Calais from there. Well... six and a bit days. The second part of the trip is where things get less fun. We were leaving Portugal to drive to London (via the train) in late October. This meant it was going to get colder, and the distances covered each day much greater. Still, we had one more stop in Portugal, Viela do Castelo, before moving on to Spain, so why not enjoy it while we can?

This, irksomely, is where things start to go wrong. They always come in groups, so… here we go. While pottering along a quiet road we heard a very metallic sounding “ping.” We stopped and had a look at the car, nothing seemed off, so carried on. It wasn’t until that evening we found that one of the bolts holding the luggage rack in place had let go, its sibling about to do the same. Not a huge problem as it was, and one fixable at a hardware store. It could have been worse though. The whole connection could have gone from one side, leaving the rack loose, failing around, and pretty much useless, leaving two people with massive bags to either sit on, sit under, or tape to various bits of the car for a week.

The next morning, address for a hardware store found, but I was not well. For no reason my old friend anxiety had returned. I tried to hide it, poorly, from Noelle, and post-fix, drove us towards the Spanish border.

About a mile away from Spain I had to pull over. It was too much. The best way I’ve heard anxiety described is that it’s like hearing the boss music in a video game yet never seeing the boss itself. I can relate to that. It was awful. It makes itself, for me, known in a number of ways depending on the situation (at the time I suffered terribly from social anxiety, thinking that everyone at parties hated me, and I often thought that the outcome of anything I tried would be overwhelmingly negative), that day it was what I like to call Anxiety Classic.

First thing I notice is a grip around my sides, like someone’s squeezing around my stomach. It’s not hard, it’s not painful, it’s just... there. In turn that makes me sensitive to anything — movement, sound, facial cues, the lot. But as if this shitshow doesn’t sound appealing enough, there’s more: dread. The impression that something, somewhere is about to go wrong with no proof that it is.

I usually just ride it out, but on that day it wasn’t possible. I thought I’d made progress, I thought I’d set myself free of being unwell. Nah. I’d given myself a break and my brain decided I needed to be reminded of the good ‘ol days. Noelle, ever the hero, got it. We’d met a few months after the worst of my mental health trouble, and I’d told her everything. Like all good friends she understood, letting me vent, and realised that there might be a few potholes on our trip. This was one. She calmed me, got me a pint of Coke in one of northern Portugal’s ropier-looking village pubs, and took over driving duties. You learn who the good people are when things get rough, and she’s one of the best.

You can reasonably expect a few squeaks and rattles in a Three Wheeler, and 99 percent of them you ignore. But when the rear wheel starts loudly squeaking at 70 mph you pay attention. This, coupled with coming down from an impending sense of doom, was not fun. It’s here I pulled the ‘I’m a helpless journalist and know nothing’ cord and called Morgan HQ, who talked me through what it could be and reassured me that it’s not fatal. This was done largely while I was under the car next to a busy café still panicking that the world was about to collapse around me. The magic of the car making people’s days kinda goes away when you’re 95 percent anxiety and think your motor’s about to eat itself.

While I was under the car people still stopped, took their pictures, and wondered what it was, but I couldn’t bring myself to smile and be enthusiastic because, well, I was sick. A rare mask slip. The chaps in Malvern told me to find a tin of grease and liberally spray it at the drive belt. This solved the car’s problem, and went a small way to sorting me out.

It took me a while to get over the squeeze of anxiety. This wasn’t helped by the fact that we had to abandon the idea of sticking to country lanes because Europe is large and I was overambitious in just what we could achieve in less than a week.

Our new highway heavy route took us to San Sebastián for Pintxos (tiny food), and then onto specifically Bordeaux and the workshop of Marcassus Sport, British car specialists. We’d been pointed in their direction because they’d be able to fix our squeak. The workshop was full of British metal, or to be more accurate: plastic. The place was full of Lotus’, Jags, some stuff that I didn’t even recognise, and a Lamborghini Espada. The chap in charge, Marc-Allain, arrived on a legit 1970's Honda CB350. We’d be in safe hands.

After driving the Mog, describing the noise, and taking the back off the car it was diagnosed as… fine. Okay, I’ve got a part in there that makes noise occasionally, but it’s fundamentally fine. My car faked a cold to get off school. Ten-year-old me would have been impressed by its ingenuity. 32-year-old me was deeply unamused.

Hopping big city to big city meant highway miles and plunging temperatures. It wasn’t as fun as it was in the Portuguese heat. Communication at speed is nigh on impossible as well, which meant we sat in silence, occasionally making hand signals to let eachother know whether it was safe to change lanes. The skies, grey, our moods were chipper as they can be in -1,000,000,000 degrees with numb hands. Memories of noisy cars and doom-laden boss music had long since gone. There was only cold. And wind. And the promise of Parisian ennui for our last night on the continent.

Noelle had a friend in town, so went for a much needed catch up (they live on opposite hemispheres — who was I to get in the way of that) while I made my own fun. I found food and wine, but no ennui. I found something else, too: the beginnings of a sense of normality.

For the first time I’d simply gone “fuck it” and done something just for me. I’d felt more like a human than I had in years, sure, but I’d also learned that simply feeling better isn’t the same as BEING better. Your mental health can be an unpredictable thing that can creep up on you at any moment, no matter how OK you think you are. Despite the freedom, and how well I thought I was, I still struggled. Perhaps the freedom itself set me off? Or maybe it was my brain going ‘FINALLY’ and firing a pressure relief valve.

It’s taken more than five years to get to a stage where I’m finally good again. Wanting to off myself to fine in five years may seem slow, but progress on such things are incremental. What this trip represents isn’t something cliché like a ‘rebirth’ or other such saccharine bullshit. It’s a stamp though: The beginning of recovery, and the first time I did something that wasn’t work first (yes, I was planning on writing about it but… shhh), but fun first. There are a comparable number of moments from those two weeks that kick around my brain every day as there are moments from work thing. When things did go sideways (mentally) I was lucky to have an amazing co-driver who knew how to deal with me, and with whom I didn’t cross a single word.

What did we learn from all this then? Recovery takes SO MUCH TIME, but things can, and will get better if you give yourself the time and space to do so. The most important thing is a simple one: Do stuff for you. It doesn’t have to be a huge road trip, but make it for you. You don’t have to feel 100 percent all the time, but you might end up with a story or two. Never know — you might learn what hail stones feel like at 70 mph.