I have just received the original factory documents, so will now try to track down the first owner, Dr John Hobby, who amazingly lived in Edgbaston, four miles from me. After completing the deal in double-quick time, he rocked up at the owner’s Angoulême home with a trailer to repatriate the car: “It was in good company with a Rover P6, Spitfire, Scimitar and Jaguar SS100. I have now fallen in love with my Mk1, the interior is so much more classy than the later cars.”īirch bought the Jensen from France after chasing up an advert that read ‘make a sensible offer, you never know’. “I was looking for a Mk2 or 3, because I preferred the front end and dashboard layout, but I was struggling to get anything within my budget, so had to have what I could afford. I recently tracked him down and found out that his was a Sage Green Mk1 FF, which is now red and still on the road in Sweden. As was the opulent leather, wood and togglefest 2+2 interior in the finest tradition of upmarket Brit and Italian GTs.Īccording to Kevin Birch, the owner of this Mk1, that cabin is all-important: “I had dreamt of owning an Interceptor since seeing my mum’s boss’ car in the early ’70s. ![]() Something reassuring in how solid they are, how, well, unnecessary.ĭid anyone really need a burbling rhino-heavy 6.3-litre V8 to propel two tonnes close to 140mph? Apparently they did, and the comfort of knowing that the big-block was there, even if throttle travel barely passed a couple of inches, was equally important. Ironically, early Interceptors were assembled by Vignale, cash-strapped Touring looking more of a risk. Norcros’ faith was repaid in spades as the Interceptor and FF sold in huge volumes by the standards of a marque whose existence had always been underpinned by building cars for other people. As soon as owner Norcros backed chief engineer Kevin Beattie’s plan for the Italian-styled car over the in-house P66, the departure of founders Richard and Alan Jensen – with whom relations were already frayed – and long-term designer Eric Neale was inevitable. ![]() They also prompted a schism within the firm. The Interceptor and FF represented more than a sea change in Jensen’s profile and success. That ‘modernised’ Interceptors are being built today, and that there’s endless chatter of a revival speaks volumes about the car’s enduring appeal. And then the format lingered – like the De Tomaso Pantera, it somehow resonated with both the public and celebrities, refusing to die: a further 5000-plus cars were produced up to its (second) official death in 1984. Having built just 500 of the hairy C-V8s over the four years to ’66, Jensen churned out more than 1000 Mk1 Interceptors in the next three. Yet it catapulted the West Bromwich company from boutique to near-volume. Which, given the extent to which the parts bin helped to build this car, is largely an illusion.įor example, while other British companies embraced monocoque technology or developed twin-cam engines, Jensen simply reclothed the girder-like C-V8 chassis with a Touring-penned and initially Vignale-built body that matched bluff purpose at one end with a vast glasshouse at the other.ĭespite it being undeniably handsome, you wouldn’t have thought that it was a formula for success – especially in an era when just about every other British manufacturer had realised it was time to throw away their decade-old designs and start again. Even though they were priced at the top of the market when new – the £5200 you would have paid for an Interceptor in 1966 could have snagged you an E-type 2+2 and something practical for the au pair, or an Aston DB6 with change – it is difficult to see what you were paying for beyond the name, the glamour and the image of artisans handcrafting trim and widgets.
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