Then there’s its Historically Significant Offshoot
This prompted Kjell Qvale to pull out, and the company went into liquidation during 1976. However, How much to rent a condo in Bangkok at least three fragments of the business survived. It was that enthusiasm, plus sufficient profits from the “service” business, that eventually attracted new ownership interest, and by 1986 P and S had been reorganized as Jensen Cars, Limited. Reorganization was enough to give a new lease on life to the Jensen Interceptor in the 1980s and 1990s. As it turned out, Parts and Service had retained all the original Interceptor tooling, which it used for the next 10 years to maintain and even restore existing cars for enthusiastic owners. To read about the Jensen Interceptor in the 1980s and 1990s, continue to the next page. Among them was a so-called Parts and Service Division that was later reorganized with new management and new financing.
Seeking to avoid disaster, the Jensen board hired Carl Duerr in 1968 to help straighten things out. In a way, he did. But he also managed to boost Jensen output to 506 units in calendar 1968 — a better than twofold increase — followed by 644 in 1969, the year the 1,000th Interceptor was built (in August). Another 594 cars were completed in 1970, when a new savior appeared in the person of Kjell Qvale, a prime U.S. Within months he arranged to sell the firm to merchant bankers William Brandt, Sons, and Company, Limited.
The FF cost a towering £5,340, which translated to $14,952. Follow the Jensen Interceptor story from 1967-1973 on the next page. If only they could be properly built and prove reliable, they would surely be a great success. The 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, and 1973 Jensen Interceptor would sell, and in numbers far above those of most Italian rivals, though early prospects didn’t seem all that promising. Not that they had much of a sales record to beat, for the CV-8 had seen only 391 examples over four years. In the late 1960s, Jensen seemed to be in continuous trouble of one sort or other — if not financial, it was strikes; if not strikes, it was quality problems. Nevertheless, both of these British newcomers were received with great enthusiasm.
The Jensens were soon earning most of their money as contract body suppliers for the new Austin-Healey 100 sports car, but they managed to evolve the 541 into improved, higher-power R and S models, bangkok condos for sale significant as early users of all-disc brakes. This was basically a facelifted 541 packing a 361-cubic-inch Chrysler V-8 with 300 gross horsepower, linked to the American maker’s responsive three-speed TorqueFlite automatic transmission. By 1961, they’d picked up a commission from Volvo for assembling that firm’s new P1800 sports coupe, whose early bodies had been initially supplied by England’s Pressed Steel company. They were also busy readying a new Jensen, which was launched in 1962 as the CV-8.
Alas, Touring was in no position to finalize this design, let alone build it, so Beattie sent the drawings across Turin to Vignale and secured that firm to supply both prototype and initial production bodies, which would be rendered in steel, not fiberglass. As planned, the new Jensens bowed with a flourish at the annual London show the following October, barely a year since the project had begun — an astonishing achievement. A CV-8 chassis was duly sent to Italy in February 1966, and was rebodied by June.
Ford V-8, Lincoln V-12, and even straight-eight Nash platforms. Dick was chief engineer, Alan the administrator (which may explain why some of their designs weren’t all that attractive). Following World War II, the Jensens used six-cylinder Meadows engines and Moss gearboxes, then switched to a four-liter Austin six for a somewhat lumpy — though not unappealing — fastback coupe introduced in 1949. They called it Interceptor. Besides a more modern tubular-steel chassis, this new model was noteworthy as the world’s first production four-seater with bodywork in that new postwar “wonder material,” glass-reinforced plastic (GRP), or fiberglass. A better-looking replacement, the 541, arrived four years later. Still, their work found increasing favor among monied types who wanted to drive something different and sporty, including movie idol Clark Gable.