Profits & Passions : Les Neumann High-tech and no-tech combine to create perfect timing

Profits & Passions : Les Neumann
High-tech and no-tech combine to create perfect timing
BY KATHY KAHN

When he's not busy working with tech companies at the Hudson Valley Center for Innovation, co-founder Les Neumann can be found in his New City garage tinkering on his 1965 Morgan, which he found rotting in an alley.

It must have been serendipity that brought the ravaged wreck of a 1965 Morgan 4/4 and technophile Les Neumann together.

When 25-year-old entrepreneur Henry Morgan built his first car in 1908, it was more motorcycle than automobile. For stability, he added a third wheel and by 1910 his auto trikes were so popular he stopped building for friends and decided to go into business.

In 1936, Morgan added a fourth wheel and the rest is history. Morgan’s original sliding-axle front-end design remains a standard on every auto the British-based manufacturer builds.

Les Neumann found his 1965 Morgan 4/4 rotting in a back alley of an auto body shop in New Jersey and immediately fell in love with its termite-infested skeleton. Perhaps it’s the enduring entrepreneur spirit that forged a link between the century-old sports-car builder and the 2lst-century technophile. Neumann, managing director of the Hudson Valley Center for Innovation (HVCFI), didn’t see a rotting piece of junk. He envisioned the car much as it looks today, thanks to nearly seven years of tender loving care that he’s given it.

Neumann spends his days commuting to the Lake Katrine tech incubator and scouting locations for expansion. But when his five o’clock world is over, Neumann turns his attention from high-tech to “no-tech.”

On this rainy Saturday morning, Pink Floyd’s “Up Against the Wall” provides the background sound while Neumann fine tunes his classic car. He says the Morgan is the “exact antithesis of technology,” and perhaps, after spending the week enmeshed in technocracy, his passion provides a much-needed human comfort zone.

“The body is made of wood, so imagine what the termite infestation did to it,” says the HVCFI co-founder. Neumann stripped what was left of his find down to the wheel wells and rebuilt the entire chassis. Morgan built his original cars from Belgium ash wood, a tradition maintained by the company today. “Piece by piece, part by part, I rebuilt this beauty and made her roadworthy,” says the “proud papa.” Neumann added some retro after-market parts -- a pair of 1954 headlights to complement the Morgan’s original lamps. Other than that, he’s kept the Morgan’s classic lines true to form.

His wife, Joan, has been his passenger for 38 years, not just for the twists and turns on life’s highway but for those on-the-road adventures. They’re both on the board of the Morgan Group of the Northeast. Last year, 70 members of their car club traveled to Williams, Mass., to trade weekend warrior stories and compare cars. And this time, says Neumann, the couple had their rain gear packed for the trip.

“There were no windows and no roof when we put it on the road,” recalled Neumann, “and on our first long drive, we got caught in a downpour. We stopped under an underpass, taken up by bikers. Joan looked at me and said, ‘we’re soaked to the bone … we may as well just keep going.’”

Arriving home drenched to their skivvies, the couple invested in some motorcycle rain gear, the kind that folds up into a small tote bag, just the right size for the car’s minitrunk space. Neumann also invested in a convertible top and plastic flaps to cover openings where windows would be -- if it had them. The Morgan 4/4’s floorboards do have convenient drainage holes in them -- for those who decide to go “topless.”

No heat, no radio, no windows -- not a single luxury -- it may be primitive as can be for those who are more inclined toward reclining in luxury-leather bucket seats. But for this long-married couple, the fun is in “roughing it” with the classic car and letting the wind blow through their hair -- “What’s left of it,” deadpanned Neumann.

When Neumann needs parts, he orders directly from Morgan in the United Kingdom. And remarkably, Morgan has remained true to its original mission statement, manufacturing its cars just as it did when its founder built his first model in 1908, totally by hand. “Every person who works on a Morgan has a specific job and signs off on every single piece of work they do,” says Neumann. “This way, if any buyer ever has a problem, the manufacturer can go directly to the technician to respond to it.” The waiting list to purchase a model like the one Neumann restored is seven years.” The prices start at $75,000 and go as high as $1 million, depending on how many bells and whistles you want to add.

Neumann likes his Morgan just the way it is. A spartan interior -- it does have a horn on the dashboard -- with a motor that hums and a body that gleams, nary a swirl mark to be found. Then, whether or not the weather cooperates, you’ll find these childhood sweethearts driving off in their classic car, leaving technology behind and enjoying the open road.

They traded the Colorado Rockies for Rockland County almost 20 years ago, coming home to New York to be closer to family. Now that their daughter is married with a home of her own, they’ve thought of downsizing but changed their minds --”not enough garage space,” declares Neumann. Instead, he’s pondering an addition that brings a smile to his wife’s face: “A bigger garage with room for our cars is definitely on the list … then Joan can park inside instead of the driveway.”

Reader Comments

Please send us your comments!

Add Your Comments

TalkBack & let us know what YOU think.

If you have something to add to this discussion topic, we'd like to know.

To send a comment:

1. Enter your full name
2. Enter your email address
3. Post your comment and click 'Submit'

Full Name:

Email Address:

Example: johndoe@aol.com

Comments:
Post your comment here
(WestfairInc reserves the right to edit any text for broadcast)