Jensen

My father bought his first Interceptor, a Mk II in Frisco Blue with black trim and collected it from the factory on 15th January 1971, registered SBR1 (No significance for his initials, but was often referred to as ‘Some bloody rotter’). My mother said how thrilled she felt driving away from the factory in the car listening to ‘Raindrops keep falling on my head’ on the 8-track tape the factory had given them, they had left behind a red Rover 3500 (P6), so it was rather a big jump up the car hierarchy.

At the time I was away at boarding school, in North Wales, so it was a few weeks before l got to see the car, being the youngest of three boys l always had to sit in the middle, but being just 12 years old l suppose l was small enough to cope quite happily, and anyway it gave me a very good view of all those instruments. I can still remember one Sunday afternoon l was walking back up the hill to the prep school when l heard this ‘burble’ coming up the road, I turned round to see my parents, they were having to make an unexpected visit to see the Headmaster of the senior school on my elder brother’s (mis) behavior! I also remember sitting in the car in the winter months being very cold outside home, with the air conditioning on in the car, as the handbook said it had to be run for at least five minutes every month.

That car was kept until January 1973, before we then took delivery from John Bosomworth’s in Skipton, North Yorkshire of a yellow MKIII, l can remember us driving off one way in the new car with SBR1 on, and John Bosomworth driving off the other way to London still with SBR1 on the old car! Can you believe that happening these days. That car had a long continental trip down to the south of Spain and back with my parents, my eldest brother who is 6’3″ and his friend who was also nearly 6′, quite how they all got in l am not really sure! In October 1974 that Jensen was sadly sold and replaced by a low mileage brown Bentley T1 (see next part for further tales!).

The story then jumps 21 years to 1995 when my father announces that we are all going out for lunch on his birthday across to Huddersfield, but we have to go early. We drive into Grundy Mack Classic car garage and there is this gleaming yellow MKII, he had bought it earlier that week (he had just had a reasonably good property deal and was feeling a bit flush!).
But after a couple of years his enthusiasm had diminished for the car, he hadn’t driven it very much, in fact l had done most of the miles and tried to keep it clean after telling him off for taking it through a roller car wash. He very kindly passed the car onto me for safe keeping with a proviso that he could drive it when he wanted, dad has now passed away, but the car lives very happily in our garage.

My initial talk of memories stems from the current Interceptor, and as l go around washing and polishing the current car, l have such vivid recollections of going back nearly 40 years to when l was a schoolboy. l can still remember all the shapes and curves for washing, polishing the chrome – particularly the exhaust pipes, the sound of the doors and boot opening and closing, switches, air horn etc etc. I have always enjoyed and taken a pride in washing and polishing cars – it really started with the Jensens we had. I won first prize (only the Bronze Class) a few years ago with the Jensen against 20 other cars that day. My mother back at the time had a Vanden Plas 1300 which l also took to washing and polishing, even the cream leather seats which gleamed! – but l was at the age that the underneath of the car did not seem important, and that car had to go when you could see daylight through the rear floor!

Brief history of my Jensen:- Dad purchased the car on 12th September 1995, with 11,670 miles. The car was completed on 6th August 1971. First Registered by Charles Follett of Mayfair on the 3rd September 1971 and used by a lady director in London, was then sold by the Receiver of the Company on August 1982 with 8,495 miles, was sold again on 1st July 1988 with 8,772 miles. Was then sold at the height of the classic car boom in August 1989 with 9,942 miles for £29,000. Dad paid £17k for it which seemed a lot at the time, the value of the car has risen very nicely since then and is insured for a lot more now, the current mileage is now almost 31,000.