After a lifetime together, one owner decided it was time to banish the model’s inherent flaws to create his perfect Jensen-Healey
WORDS MARTIN BUCKLEY PHOTOGRAPHY LUC LACEY
As an attempt at reinventing the classic British sports car for the safety- and emissions-minded 1970s, the Jensen-Healey looked like a credible product in 1972. With two revered names on its tail, a new twin-cam, 16-valve power source courtesy of Lotus and rational, off-the-shelf Vauxhall underpinnings, here was a modern yet traditional 125mph open two-seater with scintillating acceleration and tidy handling. At a fraction over £1800, it should have picked up where the Big Healey left off.
Despite misgivings about its raucous engine and the flimsy, wind-noise-inducing hood, the press reaction to the car was cautiously positive. While taking the fight to the Datsun 240Z, the car that had filled the void left by the demise of the Healey 3000 in the North American market, the Jensen-Healey should also have appealed to MGB and Triumph TR6 owners looking to trade up. Even S1 and S2 E-type devotees, feeling alienated by the complexity of the new V12 Series 3, would have seen the newcomer as a worthy alternative.
Sales forecasts of 10,000 units a year did not seem unreasonable. True enough, its new unitary body was no ravishing beauty, yet, as a means of walking a fine line between good looks and increasingly demanding American Federal legislation, the rather unremarkable shape managed not to offend the eye.
Between 1972 and the demise of Jensen Motors in 1976, almost 11,000 customers must have at least come to terms with the carʼs styling, even if they couldnʼt fall in love with it. That rather suggests the problems lay elsewhere: in the well-documented cases of poor finish and underdeveloped engines, and a simple inability to produce enough cars to satisfy the initial enthusiastic demand.
Throw in a bolshie British workforce and an American boss trying to control events remotely from his San Francisco base, and you begin to wonder how the car ever got built at all. The 1973-ʼ75 Mk2s, with sorted engines, were better, but by then even the Healey family had washed its hands of the affair. It would be wrong to put the demise of Jensen squarely on the shoulders of this cursed two-seater, but the investment it represented must have hastened the West Bromwich firm to its 1976 collapse.
When Robert Hickman was in the market for a sports car that same year, the model had all but disappeared from the new-car price lists and its various shortcomings were less widely broadcast. He was just a young man lo
