Jensen: Cars
Note: This is a sub-section of Jensen
1931 The Jensen brothers bought the body works of W. J. Smith and Sons where they worked after the owner's death, forming Jensen Motors as a subsidiary
1934 They renamed the business Jensen Motors. They built customised bodies for standard cars produced by several manufacturers of the day including Morris, Singer, Standard, and Wolseley.
In 1934 they were commissioned by American film actor Clark Gable to design and build a car for him based on a Ford V-8 chassis. The resultant car won them much acclaim and stimulated huge interest in their work including a deal with Ford to produce a run of Jensen-Fords with Jensen bodywork on a Ford chassis.
In 1934 they also started to design their first true production car under the name White Lady. This evolved into the Jensen S-type which went into production in 1935.
1935/6 The first complete car built by Jensen, the S-type, was powered by a 3.6l Ford V-8 engine[1], the first car in the world to have overdrive fitted as standard[2]
1938 Produced car with 4.5l straight-eight Nash engine.
WWII Production of cars ceased over the war years
1946 A new vehicle was offered, the Jensen PW (a luxury saloon). Few were produced since raw materials were still in short supply. Also in 1946 body designer Eric Neale joined the company from Wolseley and his first project was a more modern coupe
1950 The coupe, named the Interceptor, was introduced; this continued until 1976.
1951 Exhibitor at the 1951 Motor Show in the Car Section.
1953 Jensen started production of Neale's masterpiece, the 541R, which used the then-revolutionary material of Fibreglass for its bodywork.
1962 The 541R was replaced by another Neale design, the CV8 - instead of the Austin-sourced straight-6 engine of the previous cars, a 6 litre American Chrysler V8 was used. This large engine in such a lightweight car made the Jensen one of the fastest four-seaters of the time.
1963 Motor Show exhibitor. Showed C-V8 model. [3]
1966 For its replacement (the 1966 Interceptor) Jensen used the Italian coach-builder, Touring, for the body design, a fibreglass shell on a steel frame. The body shells were built by Vignale of Italy and later by Jensen. The same 330hp Chrysler engine was used in the earlier cars with later cars moving to a larger (440 cubic inch) engine. The Interceptor was offered in saloon, convertible and coupe versions. The saloon was by far the most popular with its large, curving wrap-around rear window that doubled as a tailgate.
Related to the Interceptor was another car, the Jensen FF, the letters standing for Ferguson Formula, Ferguson Research being the inventor of the full-time all wheel drive system adopted, the first on a production sports car. Also featured was the Dunlop Maxaret anti-lock braking system, one of the first uses of ABS in a production car. Outwardly, the only differences from the Interceptor was that it was slightly longer (4 inches) and had a second row of air vents behind the front wheels. Only 320 FFs were constructed; production ceased in 1971.
1983 Introduced the Interceptor Mk IV
List of Models
- Jensen: S-Type (1936-41) ca.50 built
- Jensen: H-Type (1938-45) ca.15 built
- Jensen: Saloon
- Jensen: Interceptor Cabriolet
- Jensen: Interceptor
- Jensen: 541
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ The Times, October 23, 1998
- ↑ The Times, Oct 26, 1964
- ↑ 1963 Motor Show