Britain's Most Unjust Failure - The Jensen Interceptor

hello everybody Welcome to number 27 I'm Jack and today I'm here to talk to you about the Jensen Interceptor and this is a fascinating car because it is yet another example of a failing British car industry but crucially this was actually a really good car yet it's still bankrupted Jensen why is that well on the surface it makes absolutely no sense this was Jensen's most successful car 6 000 were sold between 1966 and 1976. it was a car that was extremely popular with celebrities from Clark Gable Princess Anne Roger Moore you name it they love this car so it had a good image it was a good car really Plus to top it all off it really added the best from three countries Britain Italy and the US the Americans supplied the stonking motor the Italians The Styling and the Brits the Fantastic technology and the interior so then why did it fail do check out taina's website they are brilliant value and there's a discount code in the video description [Music] slight continuity error Can you spot it anyway back to this wonderful car when I said it was a marriage of American power British sort of Mechanicals and interior Comfort plus Italian style what I mean is the Italians style this it was Carol Terrier touring the Brits obviously Jensen did the layout chassis all those bits but the engine was a monster from Chrysler the earlier cars had 6.3 liter I think V8s this one this is a Mark III has a 7.2 liter Chrysler V8 it gets the same engine that has been in such cars as the Dodge Charger I think the Barracuda I'm not an expert on American stuff but it is an absolutely massive engine [Applause] and the car that preceded this the cv8 had I think some people call controversial styling to me they look absolutely fantastic but I don't think they were universally loved so when Jensen decided to make this car they wanted sort of wider marker appeal so they went for Italian design touring did the design I think the initial cars were made by vignale not with the best results and actually quality improved once Jensen brought assembly back in house the chassis has wishbones on the front and a solid rear axle that uses the Chrysler three-speed gearbox and it is a car that drives it drives like a mini Rolls-Royce it's a fantastic thing so there's a couple of main reasons why it failed but I'm going to tell you one of them now one of them later it was phenomenally expensive it was much more than the equivalent E-Type and even more expensive than the Aston Martin the V8 that ran at the same time you can see where that money went though because it's a car that especially by British standards in the sort of late 60s is really nicely made there's quality touches all over and although it used Luca switch gear it was all slightly different slightly bespoke to this specific car which means that nowadays they are an absolute nightmare to buy bits for now they were quite heavy things um 600 1600 kilograms for the late 60s is definitely a beast of the car I think a massive proportion of that is the Chrysler engine and I suppose it was supposed to be a four-seater there isn't a huge amount of room in the back but it's not a joke for Sita like a 911 I guess you could get some sort of medium-sized children in there and it is really lovingly trimmed the interior looks really nice the ergonomics aren't terrible the driving position is nice the steering wheel is a little bit lower than I would ideally like but it's not bad now visibility is absolutely fantastic so much so that it almost seems to bring the outside into the car with you and makes that quite a special experience in itself then you have the lovely materials this leather which I think feels almost Rolls-Royce quality the veneers and the Wilton Carpet even the little levers to adjust the seats backwards and forwards are covered in leather lovely attention to detail great place to sit in and reasonably well insulated against noise as well you can hear that lovely V8 bubbling away as you're going but only so much that it's a pleasant thing rather than something that gets in the way just gonna pull over here and then we will do our usual sort of pull up the road and see what it feels like oh when we give it some throttle because these were also very rapid cars for the time but still today I think that they're not exactly slouchers the original cars put out I mean the figures sort of vary quite wildly but actually let's just go for it for it down so it still has a good turn of pace about it and you can hear it's just all talk foreign anything between sort of 300 330 horsepower depending on what carb setup they had which engine it was down to about 220 horsepower although I've heard it's even lower than that once the emissions regulations kicked in this is a Mark III it has the 7.2 liter engine it also has the updated fuel injection system which was designed later on once Jensen went bankrupt and the various bits were split off and I think there was a company just doing the spares so the injection system makes it much more efficient [Applause] I said there were two reasons why it failed the second reason was that they were absurdly thirsty this particular car with a fuel injection now if driven carefully can even sort of hit 90 miles to the gallon but back in the 60s and cars with carbs will do anything from 8 to 12 MPG that was launched in 1966 but by 1973 the early 70s there was the oil crisis so big thirsty cars like this suffered tremendously and there was no other option you could only have it with these engines so at that time Jensen decided right well we have to come up with an alternative it had already been sold the original old owners I think sold it in the late 60s the new owners decided we're going to make a car which is a bit more affordable to run and to buy they retained Donald Healy and the Jensen Healey was born it's a car which to me has never really appealed I can't quite get on with the looks but I I know why they did it it used the smaller Lotus twin cam engine which at the time was very unreliable so I think as much as this failing it was actually due to that car being launched being very unreliable all the money going into that and these not selling as well as they could have now it's heartbreaking because they are brilliant cars and let me tell you a little bit about how it drives I think I mentioned earlier very much like a junior Bentley Junior Rolls-Royce it's a little bit more it's a little bit more wieldy than than a rolls it has really lovely steering feel it's power assisted it's rack and pinion it's quite slow but gives you loads of feel the suspension just demolishes everything you have in front of you it is a consumer fantastic GT you can feel the weight the steering also isn't over assistant so it works quite well with the the weighing of the other controls if you put your foot down it drops down again really quickly and sort of picks up the skirts and sort of goes down the road in quite a majestic manner it doesn't feel like the kind of car that I'd want to throw around the body is pretty well controlled at normal driving speeds but it does feel like if you were to abuse it brake too hard or turn too suddenly it would start to move around quite a lot but it is a fantastic car and of course it was relatively unknown it wasn't a flash car so rather than get a Ferrari or a boring big Merc this was actually a genuine option the only problem as I mentioned was that terrible fuel consumption the later cars got better and better in terms of quality as well the mark II's had a far nicer interior and then there were detailed differences really apart from that mainly detailed differences between the Mark 1 Mark II and Mark III you can just picture yourself maybe doing a midnight run from Monaco back to London in the 70s and this would handle it with absolute aplong something else I think we need to mention is that alongside this Jensen also launched the FF which I think is the only car that ever used the Ferguson four-wheel drive system Ferguson made tractors at the time they developed this system they thought lots of car makers would buy it they were way ahead of their time and that car could have had extraordinarily appeal outside of the UK however because of the way that it was designed some of the components for the four-wheel drive system ran on the left hand side of the car so converting it to left-hand drive wasn't possible as such they missed loads of sales including the crucial North American marker and that is something else that could have really buoyed up Jensen it looked very similar to the interceptor but in actual fact it was 12 inches longer you can just see there's that extra sort of side intake strike as well I think it's just so sad that you know in the 70s the British car industry was just abused and compared for things that it just didn't do very well the cars weren't very good they weren't good quality and then they're going to make a car which really is pretty good yes they had some issues I think cooling issues as well in the mark one but generally speaking a well-made car a great product and yet the company still went under was there just no forgiving the British car industry in those days so if you'll indulge me another quick message as well this is the first of my videos that are going to be sponsored it's not sponsored in the way of an integration don't worry I'm not going to do those sort of 30 second one minute bits trying to sell you stuff but Terina batteries who I've used previously and have been absolutely fantastic car battery suppliers they wanted to support the channel they were happy to do it in a non-intrusive way with a logo and a very quick message at the beginning of each video so for the next videos there will be their sponsorship I want to thank them for that I will put a link to their website in the video description and it will include a discount code as well so do go and have a look and if you need a car battery going forward please do consider them this is a fantastic InterContinental Cruiser a car that I am privileged to have driven a real slice of British history there's a twinge of sadness to it but it makes an amazing classic car today I think you can get them for about sort of starting to about 50 70 000 for a really good one so still a lot less than the sort of best e-types um but a relative bargain thank you all so much for watching if you have an interesting car that you want me to do a review on please do contact me Instagram is the best way and I really look forward to seeing you for the next video

Channel: Number 27

Views: 198,299

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Id: ymSdyl0n3fI

Length: 14min 10sec (850 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 24 2022