- You might be additional familiar with the Jensen Interceptor, but the Jensen GT taking pictures brake is well worth finding out about.
- This uncommon example is for sale on Bring a Trailer in an auction that ends on
Monday, April 4. - In its day in the Seventies, the GT was overpriced compared to the Datsun 260Z and the Corvette. So considerably at auction, bidding is at a mere $5000 but must go up from there.
How usually does the chance come up to have the very last of a British breed? Although Jensen Motors is improved regarded for creating the significant-block-powered Interceptor, it’s this ultra-exceptional 1976 Jensen GT capturing brake that served to sunset a badge that had been in organization due to the fact 1934. The vehicle is now up for auction on the Provide a Trailer auction site—which, like Car or truck and Driver, is component of Hearst Autos.
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Related Jensen-Healey roadsters have appeared on Deliver a Trailer in advance of, most not long ago in the kind of a 1974 model offering for $15,350 in February 2022. With only 511 illustrations of its hardtop Jensen GT sibling at any time designed, having said that, it really is a a great deal rarer uncover. In simple fact, only a trio of illustrations have discovered their way to the auction website in the previous three years, and of individuals, two ended up projects that expected severe attention. The latest bid on this particular 1976 GT, which provides perfectly as a driver and offers new engine servicing, sits at $5000 with 5 days to go.
The first open up-top Jensen-Healey was supposed as a substitution for the long-operating but defunct Austin-Healey, with the project coming to existence following Donald Healey was introduced on by head honcho Kjell Qvale as Jensen’s chairman in 1970 and hired his son to engineer the model. Healey’s light-weight, well-balanced athletics car or truck debuted for the 1972 model year.
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Adhering to on in 1975 was the Jensen GT, which in addition to its fixed roof also boasted a vestigial rear seat that only hinted at practicality. With Healey’s title wiped from the masthead right after inner strife pushed equally Donald and his progeny out of the Jensen photograph, the roadster’s bodywork was stretched without any enter from its first creator. The GT also benefited from a less troubled model of the original roadster’s problematic dual-overhead-cam, all-aluminum Lotus-created engine good for 140 horsepower and 130 pound-toes of torque. With a number of hundred kilos more to cart all around in contrast to the convertible, the Jensen GT was a bit significantly less spry but nonetheless boasted a major speed of perfectly over 100 mph.
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The GT was overpriced when compared to equally interesting rivals from Datsun (the 260Z) and Chevrolet (the Corvette), but it experienced a mix of huge comfort and ease and a tiny deal. On the other hand, lots of customers ended up unwilling to lengthen Jensen the olive department after trustworthiness worries with early Jensen-Healeys wrecked the automaker’s reputation in the U.S. Unable to save Jensen from financial turmoil, the GT finished up bookending the manufacturer as it slid into individual bankruptcy, with only 269 models making it throughout the Atlantic prior to the business went out of enterprise in mid-1976.
Not quite a Europa, and a handful of paces at the rear of the infant Interceptor that Qvale originally imagined, this 1976 Jensen GT however stays an intriguing piece of automotive history. It was affordable to operate and rarer than quite a few a modern exotic. And when was the past time you experienced the chance to pick up a authentic four-wheeled, a person-of-500 something for a cost approaching affordability?
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