Picture notes

1 - Our first MKII on display in Normand the Jensen Dealer in Bradford 1970

2 - Current car side view

3 - My father and me standing by the MKII in 1971

4 - Change over day as our old Rover 3500 is replaced by the new MKII, also my mum’s Vanden Plas 1300

5 - Current MKII at GCCG event in Beverley 2004

6 - Me and a friend being picked up from school 1971

7 - Bradford to Morecambe classic car run September 2005

8 - Current MKII at GCCG event in Beverley 2004

9 - Our second Jensen, a MKIII delivered January 1973

10 - Trying out an FF demonstrator

11 - My parents in SBR1 the MKII

12 - That fantastic back window

13 - Interior shot of current car

14 - Stood in between MKII and fathers 1946 Triumph Roadster

15 - Stood next to car at Jensen Owners Club having won 2nd prize in Concours

16 - Good shot of MKII

Memories from a childhood

My father bought his first Jensen Interceptor, a MKII in Frisco Blue with black trim and collected it from the factory on 15th January 1971 (chassis number 4021) 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 changed from a red Rover 3500 (P6), so it was a big jump up the car hierarchy.

At the time I was away at boarding school, so it was a few weeks before I got to see the car, being the youngest of three boys I always had to sit on the middle, but being just 12 years old I suppose I was small enough to cope quite happily, and anyway to gave me a very good view of all those instruments. I can still remember one Sunday afternoon I was walking back up the hill to the pep school when I heard this ‘burble’ coming up the road, I turned round to see my parents, they were having to make an unexpected visit to the Headmaster of the senior school on my elder brother’s (mis) behaviour. 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 at least 5 minutes every month.

That car was kept until January 1973 before we took delivery from John Bosomworths in Skipton, North Yorkshire of a yellow MkIII (number 136/8084), I can remember us driving off one way in the new one with SBR1 on, and John Bosomworth driving off the other way to London still with SBR1 on the old car! 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 I am not really sure! In October that Jensen was sadly sold and replaced by a low mileage brown Bentley T1. Interestingly I have found our first blue Jensen now undergoing some restoration but living only 25 miles away!

The story then jumps 21 years 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 with his private plate on, he had bought it earlier that week and arranged the transfer (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 I 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 has now very kindly passed the car on to me for safe keeping with a proviso that he can drive it when he wants (to date he hasn’t driven it, just been a passenger) and it lives very happily in our garage.

My initial talk of memories stems from the current car, and as I go round washing and polishing the current car, I have such vivid recollections of going back over 20 years to when I was a schoolboy. I 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 in the Jensens we had. My mother at the time had a Vanden Plas 1300 which I also took to washing and polishing, even the cream leather seats which gleamed! - but I 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!

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