Is there a car more quintessentially English than the Morgan?

There are few sports cars as quintessentially English as Morgans. They speak of World War Two and flat-capped Spitfire pilots driving home to their sweethearts through leafy country lanes, taking the bends at maximum speed but courteously slowing down for horses and to wave at the vicar.

But now the 113-year-old firm, which has operated from Malvern Link in Worcestershire since day one, has produced a model designed to be as capable of taking-on a crossing of the Gobi desert as it is of negotiating the parish hall car park after a particularly nasty fall of autumn leaves.

It’s called the ‘Plus Four CX-T’ with the ‘CX’ standing for cross-country and the ‘T’ referring to the off-road ‘trials’ in which Morgan’s original, three-wheeled cyclecars proved so successful in the first half of the 20th century.

The old marque has come on a bit since those days, and the new Plus Four on which the CX-T is based boasts a state-of-the-art ‘CX-Generation’ platform made from bonded aluminium, at the front of which sits a two-litre BMW TwinPower Turbo engine tuned to produce a useful 255 horsepower – making the Plus Four good for a top speed of 149 mph.

Excitingly for those desperate to answer the call of the wild in what appears to be a bizzarely incongruous vehicle, the CX-T version combines all that oomph with a raft of modifications developed by off-road vehicle experts Rally Raid UK (which has built no fewer than 60 Dakar Rally cars), making the Plus Four into a full-blown boondock-basher.

For a start, the entire car is protected by an external ‘exoskeleton’ onto which can be attached ‘leisure equipment’ , while the regular rear panel has been replaced with a bespoke rack fitted with a pair of ‘ruggedised’ waterproof Pelican cases, an aluminium tool box, a brace of 11-litre containers for fuel or water and a couple of spare wheels.

Four spot lamps and an entrenching tool are attached to the car’s specially-made composite hard top, and the underbody is protected by a five-piece bash plate to prevent damage from rocks and stones – although tweaks to the design of the standard Plus Four’s suspension and wings allow for 230mm of ground clearance and improved articulation of the wheels, which are clad in meaty, all-terrain tyres.

Removable side screens (carried in slots on the roof when not in use) give an airy feel to the CX-T’s cabin, which is protected by an internal roll-cage and comes equipped with a map holder and light, insulated cool bag and a RAM mount for holding items such as GPS units and mobile telephones.

There’s even an ‘integrated’ pencil and notebook holder to enable hapless passengers to make illegible notes while the driver has fun fording streams and careening across rutted tracks.

The fact that Morgan has plans to build just eight CX-Ts suggests there might not be a huge market for such a car – especially when, at £204,000 in the UK including VAT, it costs more than three times as much as a standard Plus Four.

But fearless ‘overlanders’ with plenty of spare cash and an urge to follow the road less travelled in something not as obvious as a Land Rover aren’t likely to be afraid of taking the rough with the smooth, are they?