My first Jensen

One day early in the summer of 1976 I was out looking for a nice summer car and my eyes fell on an ad for a Corvette '65 convertible. I went to the gas station where it was on display to have a look at it, but I didn't like what I saw. I told the guy I was not interested so he asked me if I would consider a Jensen Interceptor. I told him I'd never seen one and I didn't know anything about it. He told me about the Italian styling, Chrysler V8 and British comfort. It was a blue 1970 mk II. And then he showed it to me and let me take a drive around the block. I was hooked! Even though it was a right-hand-drive car, and I'd never tried that before, I instantly fell in love. The smell of Connolly hide, the effortless handling, the smooth transmission, the formidable power of the mill and the burble from the exhaust, together with the beauty of both the exterior lines and the comfortable interior all sent me into orbit. Mind that I'd up to then been a devoted Volvo buff.

That summer I took the family on a grand tour around the western parts of Sweden in the Jensen. The boy 3, the girl 5, were very cozy in the back seat with lots of magazines and toys, and in the capacious trunk we could stow all the necessary things including camping equipment! All we had to do was to remove the detachable wall in the hatch.

We only just started the trip when we had the first brief encounter with another Jensen on the motorway going south. We waved to each other as our paths diverted, but I took his license number and after summer I called him. And that was the beginning of the Swedish Jensen Drivers Club, but that is a different story that you can read about in another place on this site.

(C) Hans Edenholm