[D]

Alan and Richard Jensen (born in Birmingham) first re-bodied Austin Seven's before the Chief Engineer of the Standard Motor Company arranged for them to do the same to a Standard chassis. This led to the Avon Standard of the 1930's.

The brothers setup Jensen Motors Ltd. in 1936 from the remains of the West Bromwich commercial coachbuilding company WJ Smith and Sons. The brothers had joined Smiths in 1931 and built bodies on a number of car chassis such as Ford, Morris and Wolseley.

The first car to bear their own name was the 3.5 Litre using a modified Ford V8 in a Ford based chassis. Later cars had the Nash 4270cc straight eight engine. For 1938 the 4.25 Litre (H Type) was launched at the October Earls Court show. This was the first show at which Jensen appeared as independent manufacturers.

After the war the Meadows unit was used at first before its replacement with the six-cylinder unit as used in the Austin Sheerline and Princess.

The new model for 1949 was the Interceptor with a four-litre Austin engine and available as a saloon, hardtop or drop-head. The 541 of 1953 used fibreglass for the body and was developed into the 541R in 1957 and the 541S in 1960.

Of a pre-war production of less than 70 cars, 20 remain today. Of these 14 were H Types, and 11 of these are believed to have survived.

E-Mail: history@britishmm.co.uk