In his young life Tim grew up surrounded by cars, collected and traded by his father Alan Morris. This inspired a passion for motoring that later helped to shape his career.
He's been a motoring journalist since 1995, presenting a number of car programmes on television, writing for magazines and creating on-line content for several websites.
Tim is passionate about cars and often gets enthusiastic when he discovers clever engineering. His scale for judging the quality of a drive is a cars ability to transmit the feel of the road and the wheels through the steering. His preferred cars often have character and stir emotion. He is a great admirer of cars that deliver performance and features for less money than traditionally well known marques, or that fit a purpose better than other vehicles in the same class.
Although he's personally owned many vehicles, Tim regularly has a choice of cars delivered to his home for testing.
Cars he and his family have owned include a Jaguar XJS, a Jaguar XJ6, a Porche 944, a Porche 911, a Mazda RX 7, a Mazda RX 8, a Mazda 626, a Fiat X19, a Golf GTi, a Ford Escort RS Cosworth, a Ferrari 355, a Toyota MR2, a Mitsubishi Evolution and a Lotus Exige.
In 1998 Tim bought a second hand Lotus Esprit Turbo because it was the same model and colour as one that he'd had on a poster in his bedroom as a boy. The white 1988 Esprit was an early car from designer Peter Stevens and similar to Esprit's featured in films such as Pretty Woman and Basic Instinct.
Just 10,675 Esprit's were made and sold worldwide from 1977 to 2004, with less than 400 registered Esprit Turbo's remaining in Britain, according to DVLA figures in 2004.
The car soon became known by as "Lotty” after his girlfriend told everyone “it's like he's having an affair and the car's the other woman”.
The car appeared on television several times between 1998 and 2008, initially in ITV news reports, transporting Tim around the Westcountry for The West Country Tonight.
In 2008 'Lotty' played a starring role in the first Spy Guide challenge. The car carried Tim and co-presenter Dave F Williams around a number of spy film locations and was used to stage a comic re-enactment of the helicopter chase scene from the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. At Pinewood Studios Tim described the Esprit as “one of the greatest touring cars ever built”.
After blowing a Head Gasket on the way back from filming with the original Bond Esprit at the Cars of The Stars museum in Cumbria, Tim took the car to a non-specialist garage in The Black Country for emergency repairs. However, the garage failed to clamp the Piston Liners in place and unsealed one during the repair. Tim and Williams then had to fly to Stuttgart, Germany to continue the challenge in a Lotus Exige S.
When they returned to Britain they discovered that the car's engine had been completely stripped. Lawnsdown Garage claimed to have sent the engine to Halesowen Engines, a local engineering company to have the liner re-sealed but told Tim that the engineers had then stripped it without instruction. Neither company would admit liability and the case is ongoing. The parts and the car's shell were eventually returned to Tim and the Esprit is currently undergoing a complete rebuild.
The story appeared in two episodes of the Spy Guide on Motors TV in 2008 and again in the 2009 spin-off.
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