Legendary British automaker Jensen is seemingly back from the dead, and is bringing a 940 horsepower V8 muscle car with it. The manufacturer, which went bust half a century ago, unveiled the Interceptor GTX on September 4.
The upcoming vehicle will feature a GM-based 6.8-liter engine which redlines at 7,000 RPM and certain other high-performance components. Like titanium valves and a carbon fiber drive shaft. It’s a modern reworking of the classic Interceptor Grand Tourer, with a hefty track focus.
But why revive Jensen? What makes a British brand that fell out of existence in 1976 significant enough to bring back?
Old Jensen was an automotive pioneer
While many defunct vehicle manufacturers are just footnotes in automotive history, Jensen are pretty unique. The British company pioneered several features that are now pretty standard on road cars but were cutting edge at the time.
For instance, it had an AWD system in a production road car a full 14 years before the AMC Eagle rolled off the production line. It used a central differential to send 33% of the vehicle’s power to the front while the remaining 67% went to the rear.
Anti-lock brakes were also something Jensen first slapped a car in 1966. ABS was around, but had never been applied to a production sports car before Jensen came along. The particular Dunlop Maxaret system Jensen used had only featured on aircraft, semi trucks, and racing cars before then. Both ABS and AWD featured on Jensen’s groundbreaking “Ferguson Formula” (FF).
Jensen was one of the first companies to use fiberglass in a vehicle’s body work too. Back in the 1950s, the company produced vehicles like the 541 series which used a combination of fiberglass and aerodynamics to drop weight and increase performance.
Despite being one of the most innovative manufacturers on earth, Jensen could not escape the collapse of the British automotive industry in the 1970s and 1980s. In fact, it was one of the first companies to go.
It died during a major automotive extinction event
Despite the FF’s AWD system being a cutting-edge addition to the automotive world, it also played a major part in Jensen’s downfall. You may have noticed that there weren’t many Jensen FFs in the United States, and there’s a good reason for that. The bulky AWD system took up a good chunk of space in the vehicle’s engine bay and encroached into the left hand side of the cabin. As a result, you couldn’t easily produce a left-hand drive version of the Jensen FF. You’d either have to ditch the integral AWD system, or totally redesign the vehicle.
No left hand drive means no US exports, and selling cars across the pond was a major part of Jensen’s income. This alone didn’t bankrupt the company, but it certainly didn’t help.
The 1973 oil crisis meant the FF and other vehicles like the original Interceptor which were powered by massive (up to 7.2 liter) Chrysler engines were a hard sell. Customers started buying more economical vehicles, and Jensen was hit hard.
Then there was the Jensen-Healey, a sports car absolutely plagued with issues. This was partly Jensen’s fault for rushing production on the Lotus-engined vehicle, and the subsequent warranty claims were devastating for the struggling manufacturer.
Add all this to the climate of Britain in the 1970s: inflation, parts shortages, and constant labour strikes, and it’s no surprise Jensen went pop. It closed its doors around a year after British Layland (itself a government backed merger of companies like Austin, Morris, Rover, Triumph, MG, and Jaguar) declared bankrupt and was nationalized. There was no such rescue for Jensen.
Its revival can only be a good thing
Jensen coming back is a bit of a positive, and that’s nothing to do with the long deceased company’s name appearing on cars again. The point is, after oh so many dull years, we have yet another company making an exciting muscle car.
In the last decade or so, we’ve seen the end of the Camaro, Charger, and Challenger. And those were the last muscle cars standing after decades of decline. Back in the day, you had the GTO, Barracuda, 442, and many others on the list.
So if you were shopping for a new muscle car in the mid 2020s, you’d be stuck with a Mustang. Which isn’t bad, but not everyone is a Mustang person. While the new Interceptor is undoubtedly targeting the top end of the market, and will likely go toe to toe with the likes of the Mustang GTD, it may be a sign that the muscle car is about to make a comeback.
With manufacturers fixated on dropping the price of the average electric SUV, and supplying a truck for under $30,000, maybe we’ll see the cheap, sporty, fun, car make a comeback too?
