Jensen Motors Limited was a British manufacturer of sports cars and commercial vehicles in West Bromwich, England.
He went on to design two more cars for Avon then moved with his brother Richard to Austin dealers Edgbaston Garage Limited, Bournbrook, in a building still standing next to the University of Birmingham campus.
In 1934 they were commissioned by American film actor Clark Gable to design and build a car for him based on a Ford V-8 chassis.
After the war production of the Jen-Tug thrived and Jensen also produced a new range of JNSN lightweight diesel trucks and chassis which were used for a variety of vehicles including pantechnicons and buses.
A handful of Jensen buses and coaches were produced for independent operators into the 1950s, with Perkins diesel engines, David Brown gearboxes, and bodywork by a variety of bodybuilders of the time, which had the distinctive large JNSN marque cut into the sheet metal on the front of the bus, below the windscreen.
Also in 1946 body designer Eric Neale joined Jensen Motors from Wolseley and his first project was the more modern coupé which followed in 1950, named the Interceptor, which was built until 1957.
For its eventual replacement, the Interceptor, Jensen turned to the Italian coachbuilder, Carrozzeria Touring, for the body design, and to steel for the material.
The fastback was by far the most popular with its large, curving wrap-around rear window that was hinged for access to the storage area, making the Jensen an early form of liftback.
[3] At the following Show in October 1965 a production ready CV-8 FF was displayed, priced almost 50 per cent more than the standard car and three inches longer.
The FF is apparently externally identical to the Interceptor, although it was four inches longer in the bonnet (all ahead of the windscreen) and it had a second row of air vents behind the front wheels.
The resulting body-on-frame A40 Sports – which debuted at the 1949 London Motor Show[9] – had been designed by Eric Neale, an ex-Wolseley stylist who had joined Jensen in 1946.
[10] During production, the A40 Sports' aluminium bodies were built by Jensen and transported to Austin's Longbridge plant for final assembly.
Pressed Steel manufactured the body-shells at their Linwood plant in Scotland and shipped them to Jensen in West Bromwich to be finished, painted and trimmed and made ready for distribution.
[16] Alan Jensen retired from the positions of joint managing director and alternate chairman in October 1964 though he remained on the board.
[21] In mid 1968 following a disastrous 1967 year Norcros decided to sell their automotive subsidiary whose products "cost about the same as small houses".
A Jensen GT was announced in July 1975, a Jensen-Healey with a coupé/estate body[26] then the business's future came under threat which meant redundancy for 700 workers – two thirds of its workforce.
[29] The financial pundits said that in his attempt to mass-produce a small sports car Qvale installed production capacity far in excess of market demand.
[6] JP&S then turned into a company called International Motors, who gained the UK franchise for Subaru and Maserati, as well as Hyundai from 1982.
In 1982 JP&S, with the rights to use the Jensen brand names, was sold to Ian Orford who put the Interceptor back into production as the Mk IV.
[33] After a £10 million investment, with contributions from Liverpool City Council and the Department of Trade and Industry, a two-seater convertible, the Jensen S-V8, had been launched at the 1998 British International Motor Show, with an initial production run of 300 deposit paid vehicles planned at a price of £40,000 each, but by October 1999 it was confirmed that 110 orders had been placed.
[36] In September 2011 CPP, a specialist sports car manufacturer announced they were planning to make a new Jensen, expected to go on sale to the public sometime in 2014.
[37] The new Interceptor was to be based around an all-aluminium chassis and to feature alloy panels, "echoing the four-seat grand tourer layout of the much-loved original", according to the official press release.