(Updated 9/12/2025) Each of the ‘60s/’70s Euro-American V8 hybrids had its own quality. AC was the meanest, Monteverdi was the coolest, Iso was the sportiest, De Tomaso was the smarmiest, Facel-Vega the classiest, Gordon-Keeble the rarest (if you forget Monica) and Bristol both the weirdest and longest-lived. So where does that leave Jensen, which might well be the archetypal hybrid? The unluckiest, probably – again, if you don’t count Monica…
Birmingham-born brothers Allan and Richard Jensen were all about cars. In 1928, respectively aged 22 and 19, they sold their first design – a drop-top on the Standard 9 chassis, built by Avon Coachworks. By 1931, they were working out of W.J. Smith & Sons, a manufacturer of truck and coach bodies in West Bromwich, a few miles north of Birmingham. The Jensens were making specials under their own name and these had a lot of success – so much so that the young Jensen brothers took over the reins of the business in 1934.
However, the body-making started to involve more and more chassis fiddling. Furthermore, the launch of the Ford V8 and the Hudson Terraplane around this time gave rise to the first wave of Euro-American hybrids: chassis were relatively easy to manufacture once a suitable engine could be sourced.
Jensen made the leap in steps, from 1933 onwards – by which I mean they advertised their coachwork on Ford V8 chassis, then lowered the chassis to improve the look, and finally started to sell their specials under their own name, though still based on Ford running gear. The first “proper” Jensen was the White Lady prototype, which was developed into the Ford-powered S-Type.
Jensen continued using Ford V8s (both the 3.6 litre and the V8-60) on their cars until 1940, but this was not the only engine used: Nash provided Jensen with their finest straight-8 – a monumental 4.25-litre. OK, it was less than monumental, but it enabled Jensen to try their hand at a real luxury saloon, known as the H-Type. The chassis was still Ford-based, though…
After 1945, Jensen reappeared but the Ford days were over. The company invested a great deal of effort into developing a Meadows-engined chassis, which was beset by a myriad of technical issues and eventually abandoned. In 1947, the Jensen 4-litre saloon reappeared with some leftover Nash straight-8s, but by 1949 Austin’s 4-litre 6-cyl. took over. Very few of these Jensen PW (post-war) saloons were made, but at least the car had initiated a relationship with Austin, who brought Jensen a lot of business.
Let us not forget that Jensen never ceased to be a coachbuilder for other automakers – Austin especially, but by no means exclusively. Throughout the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, body production for ensured that Jensen always had a steady stream of work on top of their exclusive cars.
We might likewise bear in mind that Jensen also manufactured several types of trucks and proto-minivans – the latter being FWD Tempos, no less. But much as we love Tempos, let’s focus back on Jensen’s destiny, which took a turn for the sportier.
The first Jensen Interceptor, based on the Austin 4-litre chassis, debuted in late 1949. Less than 100 were made, but it presaged what Jensen cars were to become. The only thing that was still in the old style was the Interceptor’s body, which was made of aluminium panels over a steel frame. But when the 541 arrived in late 1954, most of its body was GRP. Jensen were one of the pioneers of this technique in the UK, which allowed their sports cars to shed some weight and raise their game.
Jensen still used the venerable Austin 4-litre, but the design of the car, clearly influenced by the 300 SL, was sleeker and more modern. The 541 R and 541 S, which followed in 1957 and 1960 respectively, were ameliorations of the basic concept, but said concept was running out of steam. Jensen needed something more powerful than Austin’s patrician six. They began toying with the idea of something more V-shaped, possibly with eight cylinders – most likely imported.
In late 1961, Jensen joined Facel-Vega and Bristol in selecting the Chrysler V8 for their new car, the aptly-named C-V8. The chassis and body were closely related to the 541 S, but for a few tweaks. The C-V8’s canted quad headlamps were all the rage in the early ‘60s, though some attempts were more successful than others. For my part, I find the Jensen C-V8 to be an impressive and unconventionally attractive car that looks like no other – save for the Jensen 541.
The C-V8 carried on through three series, while the shagadelic Austin-powered 541 S was nixed in 1963. But it seems Jensen were a little confused about what to do next. Several prototypes were being worked on simultaneously, including an all-wheel-drive (the famous “Ferguson Formula”) C-V8 and a smaller two-seater sports car on a new chassis, code-named P66. Not to mix metaphors, but in a nutshell, Jensen were at a crossroads — it was crunch time.
Let’s back up a bit first. In 1959, the Jensen brothers had sold off the whole operation to Norcross Holdings PLC. The brothers remained in charge, but as business began to slow down, there were some murmurs. Some decision-makers were adamant that the P66, designed by Eric Neale (as all Jensens had been since the early ‘50s), was a step in the wrong direction. They convinced the Jensen board that an Italian design would be a far better selling point. The board was convinced, and in February 1966, a C-V8 chassis was dispatched to Milan, where Touring did their thing – the Interceptor as we know it. By July, the car was ready for production. The Jensen brothers had been sidelined and left in a huff, along with designer Eric Neale.
The first Interceptors were built in Italy by Vignale (Touring were circling the drain at that point), but this proved uneconomical, so jigs were sent to West Bromwich in mid-1967. Compared to the C-V8, the Interceptor looked, well, Italian. Which is not a bad thing, especially in the ‘60s. But it did take some of its personality away, not to mention that it was back to a conventional steel body, instead of the C-V8’s fiberglass.
Backed up against a wall financially, what with all that P66 development money poured down the drain and the loss of both the Austin-Healey and the Sunbeam Tiger lines, Jensen tried to recoup their investment in the Ferguson car by introducing the Interceptor-based FF as the first all-wheel-drive sports car and the first car equipped with anti-lock brakes. On the outside, the FF looked almost identical to the RWD Interceptor, save for the its longer front end and additional side-vent. Internally, things were mighty different indeed.
The late ‘60s / early ‘70s were the high point in automotive history for Euro-American hybrids – in terms of supply, if not demand. One might also call that a glut. The only way for Jensen to have a future was to attempt something a bit less exclusive than complex V8-powered coupés. Or so thought one of Jensen’s top importers, a certain Mr Kjell Qvale, based in San Francisco.
Qvale had been instrumental, through his California dealerships, in distributing thousands of MGs, Jaguars and Austin-Healeys (and over 30 other foreign marques, including Jensen) since the late ‘40s. By the late ‘60s, he was selling around 150,000 cars per annum on the West Coast. Always willing to spontaneously offer helpful advice to the automakers he represented, not unlike his colleague Max Hoffman in New York, Qvale fancied himself a bit of an amateur carmaker. And in the late ‘60s, he met with an actual carmaker, Donald Healey, who was trying to finalize a new project. Let’s take a few paragraphs to delve into the Healey side of this story.
Healey existed for a number of years as an independent carmaker. After having worked for Triumph in the ‘30s, Donald Healey founded his eponymous Motor Company in 1945 and his cars were almost immediately hailed as excellent in terms of build quality, reliability and speed, being able to top 100 mph. The car became a fixture of European rallies and racetracks in the late ‘40s, with Donald Healey himself actively participating as a constructor, team owner and driver.
Healey used Riley’s “big four” 2.4 litre twin cam engine and rear axle, but made most of the rest of the chassis in-house. As per the custom of the era, a number of clients ordered the chassis and got the body made by a coachbuilder of their choice, which could make for some surprising results (clockwise from top left: Bertone, Uhlik, Langenthal, Duncan, Pennock, Van den Plas, Pourtout, Worblaufen).
The Healey 2.4 could also be bought with standard bodies designed by Healey to a high degree of sophistication – wind-tunnel tested and everything. These included the Westland roadster, Elliot coupé and Silverstone racer. In 1950, Healey updated the car’s looks and farmed out the drop-top to Abbott and the coupé to Tickford. Aside from the horrid 1949-50 Sportsman cabriolet, these were pretty successful and were produced until about 1954. But Donald Healey was not content with making cars under his name only. He leveraged the 2.4’s multiple racing victories into new ventures of the joint kind.
In 1950, Healey struck a gentleman’s agreement with George Mason to produce a Nash-engined sports car for the American market. The Nash-Healey had limited success, but started something of a trend: sports cars whose name ended in “hyphen Healey.” The first Nash-Healeys seen in early 1951 were bodied by Panelcraft in Birmingham, but subsequently got a major facelift by PininFarina, who took over body-making duties.
In 1952, Healey launched the 3-litre G-Type, which used Alvis’ 6-cyl. and was otherwise known as Alvis-Healey. But successful though this all was, Healey’s operation was small-time in the extreme. Only about 500 Nash-Healeys and fewer than 30 Alvis-Healeys were made by 1954, as well as about 600 Healey 2.4s. The way to make it sustainable was to team up with a larger domestic carmaker, just like what DB did with Panhard, Abarth with Fiat or Shelby with Ford.
In 1953, Healey tied the knot with BMC to create a highly successful family of sports cars, the bigger ones (the Austin-Healey 100, later renamed as the 3000) being bodied by Jensen. West Bromwich had actually made a few design proposals for the Austin-Healey, including a rather fetching coupé, but had to be content with merely building the bodies instead. In 1967, the big Healey’s demise left Austin-Healey with the only the 2nd generation Sprite, an MG Midget clone that Donald Healey had had zero involvement in and little enthusiasm for.
Unfortunately for Donald Healey, there were changes afoot at BMC. The corporation was merging left, right and centre, turning into the impotent hydra that was to become British Leyland. The Healey name had little value to the BL monster’s executives and, just like John Cooper, Healey was cut loose from his lucrative association with Austin by 1970 – the very last Sprites made in 1971 being simply rebadged as “Austin” so that BL could forego paying Healey’s modest royalties.
Donald Healey saw this coming and secretly worked on a Vauxhall-based prototype, codenamed X500, since 1967. In 1970, Qvale managed to take control of a struggling Jensen Motors, which had gone through a number of directors and owners since the departure of the founders four years earlier. Healey’s prototype was just what Qvale was looking for – an MG/Triumph competitor for Jensen to conquer the US market and keep the now severely underused factory active. Well, it was almost what Qvale was looking for. He didn’t like the styling, the engine was questionable and the chassis needed work. Still, it was a promising start. The Jensen-Healey project went ahead.
Engine-wise, there were lots of options to explore. A dozen X500 chassis were made and tested with various solutions – BMW, Ford, Mazda and Simca 4- and 6-cyl. engines all got a look into. Jensen never made an engine themselves, so it was crucial to find the most adequate one from another maker. The problem was that the X500 had been designed around the 2-litre Vauxhall slant 4, which was abandoned due to poor performance in US-spec. The other engines tested were either too big, too heavy or too expensive. As luck would have it, someone else swooped in to solve the conundrum: Lotus were devising a 16-valve DOHC 4-cyl. based (sort of) on the Vauxhall mill for their road cars, albeit made of aluminium and built by Lotus. It sounded ideal. Colin Chapman and Kjell Qvale soon struck a deal for Lotus to produce the Jensen-Healey engine, which was mated to a Sunbeam 4-speed transmission. Just to enhance the kit car feel, the rest of the car’s bits (suspension, steering and brakes) remained Vauxhall-sourced.
At the same time, William Towns was roped in to restyle the ungainly Healey drop-top to suit Qvale’s more conservative tastes. Not only that, but the Jensen-Healey was meant to be exported mainly to the US, where stringent new legislation beckoned regarding bumpers. It therefore made some sense to integrate the 5-mph requirement ahead of the curve. The result of the whole operation is debatable. The rear end of the car looks like it came off a Triumph, while the front has less charisma than it could have had. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Production started in mid-1972 and was supposed to ramp up gradually to about 100 cars per day by 1973. Unfortunately, the engine turned into an anchor. Colin Chapman soon owned up to production difficulties – not enough engines were being made, which held back the Jensen-Healey’s production schedule. Not only that, but the brilliant Lotus engine was severely underdeveloped, as the car’s first clients soon found out, in the US and elsewhere. Let’s see how the Jensen-Healey compared to other drop-tops available across the Pond.
In terms of engine trouble, the Triumph V8 certainly gave the Lotus 907 a run for its money. But Triumph’s 6-cyl. roadster, on the other hand, was a formidable opponent – cheaper, better sprung and reliable as the day is long. And if the lure of the twin cam was stronger than anything else, Fiat and Alfa were only too happy to oblige – with a lot more style, too. And let’s not forget the Corvette. Ok, it took about $1000 extra to put power brakes, power steering, A/C, radio and a real engine in one of these, but it was still pretty good value, all things considered.
The Jensen-Healey experiment turned sour very quickly after 1973. On the plus side, the Sunbeam gearbox was traded for a 5-speed Getrag unit. More creature comforts were available, such as A/C and a wooden dash, but the quality of the body was still not up to snuff and the convertible top was impossibly complicated to fold away. Production shot up for 1974, but that was the last ray of sunshine before the storm that engulfed West Bromwich.
Qvale knew that the Interceptor’s days were numbered. Since the Oil Shock of late 1973, sales of V8-powered luxobarges such as the big Jensen had fallen off a cliff. Several plans were being developed simultaneously: a drop-top version of the Interceptor, which went on sale in 1974, as well as two completely new models.
The F-Type, designed by William Towns, was planned to pack the Chrysler 440 found on contemporary Interceptors, but Jensen also had an eye to use a high-displacement triple rotary engine (GM or Mercedes) when those would become available. The F-Type went through a lot of development work – prototype body shells were made and at least one car was crash-tested in 1974. It failed the frontal impact test pretty conclusively, which put the programme in jeopardy.
Another mooted development was the Jensen G-Type, with gullwing doors. Also penned by William Towns, this car was slated replace the Jensen-Healey, using the reassuringly reliable Simca 2-litre engine. This prototype was far less advanced than the F-Type, though, and Qvale had other ideas concerning the Jensen-Healey’s immediate future.
In spite of higher production, the Jensen ship was sinking fast by 1974. Donald Healey and his entourage elected to bail, as Qvale’s increasingly frantic management style and Chapman’s subpar engine muted Healey’s enthusiasm for the car that bore his name. Qvale had a couple of last shots to fire before he raised the white flag, though. Alas, the company went into receivership even before the final “new” models were introduced. Both were a blatantly desperate attempt to create something out of the existing range.
Interceptors now came in three flavours, body-wise: the coupé was launched in October 1975, as Jensen participated in their final London Motor Show. At the same event, the Jensen GT was introduced – sans Healey in the name, though it was clearly a shooting brake based on the roadster. That, and it was far too little and far too late: the reputation of the Lotus engine was such that few people were tempted by West Bromwich’s newest 2-litre car.
Jensen Motors’ receivership did not mean production was halted, but it was clearly in jeopardy. The firm officially ceased to exist in May 1976 and its assets were sold off in August. A successor company, Jensen Parts & Service (JPS) Ltd, was created and continued putting together a few cars until December – the majority of the 46 Interceptor coupés were made during this time, for instance. JPS kept operating for many years, as they had the jigs, molds and spares required to keep all Jensens on the road, as well as ex-Jensen employees who knew the cars better than anybody else.
The death of Jensen was seen as untimely by quite a few people. By the time oil prices went down and the economy picked up, a dormant company called Jensen Special Products, which Qvale had created when Jensen Motors sank, sprang back to life. (That’s an exaggeration, of course: they had been very busy doing subcontracting work for a number of clients, such as Volvo Trucks, Range Rover and many others.)
In October 1983, the Interceptor went back into production as the “S 4” coupé and convertible, now with Chrysler’s 5.9 litre LA series V8 in lieu of the 440 of yore, but very few other changes besides. Qvale sold his shares as soon as he could, probably sensing that things were not going to be rosy for long (and later bought De Tomaso — some people have a knack for business…)
Beyond its ageing underpinnings and looks, the main problem was that the Interceptor S4 was very expensive: £40,000 for the saloon, £46,000 for the convertible in 1984, and more than double those amounts by 1989. When the receivers were called in again in 1992, only 14 cars had been made in nine years – half stayed in Britain.
The marque withered, but still refused to die. A new project was put together to make a completely new Jensen, dubbed S-V8, first shown in 1998. The link with the previous Jensens were tenuous at best, though: the S-V8 had a Ford V8, a sophisticated IRS (unlike any Jensen before it) and unit body construction. The familiar small-time carmaker thing happened: production started in 2000, the company went bust in 2002, another company took over and lasted until about 2005. A grand total of 34 cars were made. It seems a few Interceptors were also put together in the 21st Century – albeit with Corvette power and a Jaguar-sourced IRS. So perhaps Jensen will make yet another comeback sometime in the future. But ultimately, all this revival malarky was always about the Interceptor, never the Jensen-Healey.
And therein lies the Deadliness of the Sin. When Kjell Qvale and Donald Healey teamed up to take over Jensen in 1970, the plan was to make a true successor to the Austin-Healey, as well as continuing with the big V8 Jensens for a while. In this, the Jensen-Healey failed miserably. It was not a particularly attractive design, was not built to a very high standard and was saddled with an engine that was unreliable – especially when driven hard. Qvale and Healey probably did not figure that “LOTUS” was actually an acronym for “Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious.” This ensured that Jensen, already fragile by the end of the ‘60s, would not make it past the ‘70s. Plus, let’s not forget that this double-barreled disaster also buried the Donald Healey Motor Co., a rare case of a Deadly Sin twofer.
So there we are – another trio of British Deadly Sins done, yet so much more to go. They’re starting to add up, sure. But the UK made a lot of mistakes over the years – not counting Piers Morgan, Brexit and Cadbury’s “chocolate,” of course, let’s keep this automotive – so there will have to be more British episodes in the future. In the meantime, though, let’s cross over back to the Continent. Where? Why, that would be telling…
Related Posts
Curbside Classic: Jensen Healey – Care To Take It For A Really Long Test Drive? by David Saunders
Alleyside Classic: 1974 (?) Jensen-Healey – Parked, Now Trying To Run by Jim Klein
Convertible Week Finale: Jensen-Healey on Skinner Butte by PN
Curbside Classic: Jensen Interceptor – The Handsome Anglo-Italo-American Mashup by David Saunders
Design Capsule: Jensen Interceptor – Design Hand Me Down, Two Times by PN
Cohort Outtake: 1964 Jensen CV8 MkII – Nice Specs… by Perry Shoar
* * *
European Deadly Sins series
French DS 1 (Hotchkiss, Panhard, Citroën) — French DS 2 (Bugatti, Facel-Vega, Monica)
French DS 3 (Berliet, Salmson, Delahaye) — French DS 4 (Simca, Talbot, Matra)
British DS 1 (Jowett, Armstrong Siddeley, Daimler) — British DS 2 (Alvis, Lagonda, Gordon-Keeble)
British DS 3 (Invicta, Standard, Reliant)
German DS 1 (BMW, Borgward, Glas) — German DS 2 (Neckar, DKW, NSU)
Italian DS 1 (Autobianchi, Iso, Lancia) — Italian DS 2 (Isotta Fraschini, ASA, De Tomaso)
Other DS 1 (Minerva-Impéria, Monteverdi, DAF)
Just lovely stuff, Sir, as per (or exceeding) the terms of your pricey contract.
They really are a bunch of “not particularlys”, aren’t they? As in, not particularly desirable, not outstanding in their field, not eccentrically interesting. I am biased, having never liked the Interceptor with that hairdresser’s dryer back window bubble, and the intriguing but ludicrously long-schozzedFF even less (Actually, partial exception for the FF, as it did fascinate technically). The CV-8 is sorta-kinda ok, though I reckon I am grafting on WW2 fighters to the image, which, given their frontal messiness, is likely the best way to see them. The 541’s are really not bad at all, and being quick and exotic, are surely a bit undervalued currently.
The JH had large amounts of No Way-ness just on the flat-paneled looks alone, and it is odd to think of Donald H thinking it could successfully replace a curvy classic like the 3000.
Why people keep trying to roll back the stone and get the Interceptor going again I’ll never know. Leave the unvoluptuous thing rest in peace.
Was that CV-8 4wd ever made? If so, that’s a real curiosity to me.
“it is odd to think of Donald H thinking it could successfully replace a curvy classic like the 3000.”
Because in the 70s, the 3000 wasn’t a classic, but merely outdated. The fashion of the day were wedge-shaped, slab-sided cars, as depicted in the comparison, and Healey had to get on with the times to keep making money.
He did, except for the rear solid axle with drums.
Mentioning the Interceptor, and especially the restomodded one, made me think of one thing – The Interceptors!
Also, in the 1973 sports car comparo, I’d either get the Porsche or the Chevy. It’d depend on a test drive.
The biggest question is when the Vauxhall-based Lotus engine proved to be so much trouble, why not just bolt in the already-federalized Opel 1900 and pass the savings on to the customer? It’d probably end up landing a bit downmarket of where they wanted to be – still more so when the supply of by-then-injected federal Opel 1900s dried up and they were left with going to the Isuzu 1.8 or Chevrolet Chevette 1.6 among GM-sourced engines – but sales are always better than no sales.
I suspect the short answer would be because it wasn’t British. That used to mean a lot back then. Buying in big V8s from the Americans was one thing; it would have been an unacceptable affront to national pride to buy in a same-size engine as the ones your countrymen made.
The Opel engine didnt have the performance for a sports car quite simply they are gutless, and while the Vauxhall engine appears to have been unreliable it was still in use many years later in twin cam form when Vauxhall themselves redesigned a twin cam 16 valve head to get around the Lotus patents and put it in their own version of the GM T car, Why they used a Hillman Hunter gearbox is a mystery that design began in the 1930s.Ol Pete have you forgotten those awful Subirds GMH churned out?
No I haven’t forgotten them. GM’s Aussie engineers putting an Opel four in an overweight sedan bodyshell to try to sell in Australia and NZ is one thing. I couldn’t imagine the British in the early seventies wanting to use a German engine in a British sports car bearing the proud names of Jensen and Healey.
Britain wasn’t in the EEC (EU) at that time so it might be that import duties made the Opel engine uncompetitive.
GMH simply left the Opel powertrain in the Opel body, Toranas were always based on Opels, the first model via Vauxhall the larger model is direct from Opel.
The Jensen Healey was designed ‘around’ a Vauxhall slant four, read that, the engine lays on its side the Opel lump stands upright and simply will not fit, that they used the syncro Hillman gearbox is a mystery the 4 speed fitted behind the slant 4 vauxhall engine in CF Jumbo vans is indestructable literally,
One other British company had slant engines in that era but they had their own tuning operation for a go faster model and it wasnt Lotus.
There werent any options that would fit.
One of the fetching design proposals Jensen produced for what became the Austin-Healey (along with a proposal by Frazer Nash) was the Eric Neale designed 1952 Jensen 504 prototype, which was reminiscent of the MGA. It actually brings to mind the question of whether Jensen could have built a rebodied MGB / MGC (despite the Austin-Healey version of the MGC suggesting a rebody was out of the question).
The Jensen-Healey could have been more attractive than what entered production based on the clay models, sketches and prototypes.
The original Healey prototype by Hugo Poole featured a vaguely MGB-like front and softer-lined rear with hints of the Austin-Healey 3000, before the front and rear was sawed off by Qvale / Jensen to feature a Triumph TR6-like front and Spitfire-like tail to create a very unaerodynamic car that could barely reach 100 mph.
Then William Towns was brought in only for his original smoother and more harmonious styling proposal to be rejected, with the final production Jensen-Healey featuring the familiar underdeveloped front-end and carrying over the Spitfire-like tail of the Qvale / Jensen proposal. Both the original Healey and Towns proposals were the more attractive designs compared to the final product.
It seems Viva/Firenza-sourced anti-roll bars were originally incorporated on the original prototype prior to being deleted, which the likes of Geoffrey Healey did not see as a sound decision.
As far as alternative engines to the Lotus 900 Series are concerned for the Jensen-Healey that is another issue. While the Lotus engine was derived from the Vauxhall Slant-Four, perhaps it would have been In everyone’s interest for Lotus and Vauxhall to collaborate more closely together on a single engine instead of producing two engines that could share the same Lotus head?
Also Vauxhall themselves planned to produce a fuel-injected version of the 2.3-litre 16-valve Slant-Four capable of putting out 150 hp for the FE Series Vauxhall VX, along with a Slant-Four derived V8 engine.
In retrospect the only realistically viable engine that comes to mind for the Jensen-Healey would have to be the Simca Type 180 engine (which was considered alongside the 2-litre Pinto in the late-1970), both on the basis it drew inspiration from BMW M10 (that was also considered along with the M30) as well as the fact Jensen-Healey later approached Ricardo in early-1973 about designing a twin-cam head 16-valve head for the Simca Type 180 engine (when patience was evaporating over the underdeveloped Lotus engine).
That is also not forgetting the Simca Type 180 engine’s own potential being belatedly realized later on in the Matra Murena in both 140 hp Murena S and 180 hp Murena 4S (aka 16-valve) prototype as well as in the 148-178 hp Peugeot 505 Turbo and 200 hp Citroen BX 4TC.
IMO the 2.0 Pinto would’ve been the best choice of all the engines you mentioned – already Federalized, reliable, and with cheap and ready parts backup in the J-H’s most important market. It would, however, have made it critical to keep the weight well below that of a stock Pinto trunk coupe, though.
The problem with the 2-litre Pinto is its low power in 86 hp US emissions spec form. Which is comparable to the 83.5 hp for the US emissions compliant 2.3-litre Vauxhall Slant-Four and itself was well down from the pretty miserable 95 hp that was envisaged, with both apart from the later Euro-spec 131 hp 2.3-litre Vauxhall Slant-Four not meeting the power target of 130 hp.
On top of that the Cologne V6 did not meet the grade in US emissions spec and Ford themselves did not have the capacity to spare, the BMW M30 was dismissed because the 6-cylinder was too big and heavy with BMW themselves also claiming they did not have any spare capacity for it or the M10 4-cylinder. Though it is also claimed Qvale unwittingly undermined both options due to talk of unrealistic high Jensen-Healey production numbers.
It seems Alfa Romeo and even Volvo were considered (it is not clear if the latter was for the 2-litre B20 or upcoming B21 Redblock engines), though nothing became of either proposal (with the Mazda rotary proposal also being a blind alley).
That just leaves the Simca Type 180 as a possible alternate to the Lotus engine (aside from a full Vauxhall/Lotus-collaboration) and a Chrysler Europe that would have potentially been receptive to the idea of having its BMW M10-inspired engine used for the Jensen-Healey.
So redesign the entire front clip again to install an overtall Ford engine, yeah right, the whole project was based around the Vauxhall parts bin and the Pinto is gutless.
Ahhh, another of those “Titanic” stories. You hope that in this telling the ship can survive the iceberg. But alas . . .
First the P66. Other than providing another example of my theory that there has never been an attractive use of those speed streaks, this was an attractive car. A V8-powered English roadster (with a sub-Bristol price) would have had the market pretty much to itself in the States.
The Interceptor – I have always kind of liked it, but maybe this is because I have always seen this as an Italianized Avanti in its styling. And who couldn’t love something with English wood and leather powered by a Chrysler 440?
The Jensen-Healey? Sorry, but I could just never understand the allure of an expensive car with a high-strung 4. The J-H was not unattractive (though certainly not beautiful either) and a decent engine would have made all the difference. For awhile, at least.
Oh – the Nash-Healey. The short-lived 1951 version was fabulous. That 1953 restyle was awful. Virgil Exner’s Ghia work was certainly casting a wide shadow across the Italian design houses by then, wasn’t it.
Hehe… The speed streaks strike again.
How about the P66 coupé prototype? Infinitely better because 1) it still exists and 2) it’s streakless.
Thank you for the comprehensiveness in exploring the rest of Jensen in describing the J-H. It’s surprising, given what a failure it was, that there do seem to be pretty regular sightings and usages of the J-H all over the place (at least that’s my perception from where I sit), albeit in varied states of (dis-)repair.
Great post, I didnt know until today I learned to drive in a Jensen, OK it was an Austin Gipsy but according to the research here Jensen built the body, they did rust rather alarmingly though, and it appears I have a Jensen gearbox in my Hillman minx now that could be a selling point, gotta wonder why though the Vauxhall slant four came with a fourspeed box when you bought it in a Victor or Viva sedan and a super strong four speed in a CF Bedford van, those boxes are really prized for speedway use here, would GM not play the game with Jensen for entire powertrains.
Great write up. Jensen is quite an interesting company involved with a varied cars like the Austin A40 Sports and Volvo P1800.
That P-66 is quite the looker. Shame they did not give that one a go.
The Jensen Healey while a of failed mash-up seems to have decent survival rates.
Volvo moved that to in house due to quality issues, Jensen Healeys should accept a SBC without any issues thats what happened to those OHC Vauxhalls in NZ, when they went bang and they did, a small block Chev went in, then you could catch a stock 6 cylinder FD Victor 3300SL.
Great work. I appreciate all the work you do in writing such well written and researched articles. Never heard of “Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious” and laughed out loud when I read it. Thank you.
The Interceptor is one of my favorite cars. A cousin of mine had one in London in the early 70s. I’ve had a fondness for them since then. And, I do appreciate the J_H even though it has a large dose of British foibles. Great work on the write-up. Many thanks for covering a marque I like.
I think you’ve got the Sprite/Midget relationship backwards: the Midget was originally a clone of the 2nd-generation Sprite, although it did last longer.
What a well researched article and followed by good detailed comments .
I never knew how many different Jensen’s were made .
-Nate