Fuzzy Dunlop
Banned
Have the Jensen Interceptor be a big seller in the USA with it taking sales from the Muscle & Pony car market between the mid 60's to the late 70's
Much obliged!
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Have the Jensen Interceptor be a big seller in the USA.
- Thread starter Fuzzy Dunlop
- Start date
Have the Jensen Interceptor be a big seller in the USA with it taking sales from the Muscle & Pony car market between the mid 60's to the late 70's
Much obliged!
I put the Top Gear Interceptors in as a joke.
However, there was a short-lived revival of The Saint in 1990. It was made by London Weekend Television and an actor called Simon Dutton played Simon Templar. He drove a Jensen Interceptor.
Jensen also did the final assembly of the Volvo P1800, but AFAIK not the one used by Roger Moore's incarnation of Simon Templar.
However, there was a short-lived revival of The Saint in 1990. It was made by London Weekend Television and an actor called Simon Dutton played Simon Templar. He drove a Jensen Interceptor.
Jensen also did the final assembly of the Volvo P1800, but AFAIK not the one used by Roger Moore's incarnation of Simon Templar.
This is a link to a BBC programme called The Car's The Star presented by Quentin Wilson.
At one point he says that 6,000 were built.
I have a book about Jensen that was published in the 1980s. IIRC the book said that sales of the Interceptor and FF weren't affected by the oil crisis. According to the book what did for the Company was that people stopped buying the cheaper Jensen-Healey.
At one point he says that 6,000 were built.
I have a book about Jensen that was published in the 1980s. IIRC the book said that sales of the Interceptor and FF weren't affected by the oil crisis. According to the book what did for the Company was that people stopped buying the cheaper Jensen-Healey.
Give it a rear-end that doesn't look like it belongs on what muscle-car loving red-blooded Americans in the '60s and '70s would consider a crappy, weak-looking foreign car. A proper separate trunk and more square window, instead of the bubble-and-hatchback.
Compare to the '67 Shelby Mustang:
Compare to the '67 Shelby Mustang:
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marathag
Banned
Plymouth couldn't pull that look off with the 1stG Barracuda
AMC was smoking some weird stuff too. Pacer wasn't the first Toke
Woof, That C pillar
And then the Camaro and Firebird turned up, and probably a couple more I have forgotten. It seems to be super common to just miss the scale of these kinds of challenges. Selling a few thousand oddball cars over a few years is hard enough, going toe-to-toe with massive well-entrenched competitors is a whole different thing.
The 240Z was regarded as extremely successful because it did a bunch of things just right and only sold, what, 45k units in decade? I know some people believe they could have sold ten times with more production that but still is one years worth of mustangs.
The interceptor could never be a rival for the Mustang. It was way too expensive. It could be seen as an upmarket alternative to the Buick Riviera and Lincoln Mark series. One way to make it a bit cheaper would be to reverse the process. Instead of having it built in the UK with imported US engines juts have the Chassis/bodies shipped from the UK with engines and transmission being fitted by Chrysler, along with the interior and the painting. The car would probably benefit from having US rather than UK electrics. It could then be sold in the US as the Chrysler Interceptor, and be a flagship luxury coupe for the division. It would be more expensive than the Buick and Lincoln, but would also be faster, would probably handle better, and would not have the electrical problems (and other build quality issues) that plagued most small volume British cars of late 60/ and 70.
My Brothers boss back in the day bought a Black Interceptor dirt cheap in the mid-70's as the oil crisis crashed the prices. So he lived in Cardiff and his girlfriend was at the LSE in London doing a Masters in Economics, so he used to drive up every weekend and was slowly bankrupting himself paying for the fuel.
When he was up in London he found he was being pulled by the Police multiple times a day, they would pull him over and go over it with a fine toothed comb. Every time he was up there the same thing happened. He was talking to his cousin who was a cop in the Met, he told him that the cops were either playing snooker or top trumps. If it was snooker the cops would pull a white car, then a red car and ideally a black car as they were shooting for the highest possible snooker score, if it was top trumps they would pull it as it had a 7.3 litre engine and a good max speed so would likely win on those.
In the end he sold it, he simply could not afford it so traded it in for an Escort RS. The girlfriend dumped him for a Canadian who ended up working for the Central bank.
When he was up in London he found he was being pulled by the Police multiple times a day, they would pull him over and go over it with a fine toothed comb. Every time he was up there the same thing happened. He was talking to his cousin who was a cop in the Met, he told him that the cops were either playing snooker or top trumps. If it was snooker the cops would pull a white car, then a red car and ideally a black car as they were shooting for the highest possible snooker score, if it was top trumps they would pull it as it had a 7.3 litre engine and a good max speed so would likely win on those.
In the end he sold it, he simply could not afford it so traded it in for an Escort RS. The girlfriend dumped him for a Canadian who ended up working for the Central bank.
Just as a reality check, ~6k interceptors in a decade, ~600 a year. The Ferrari 365 came to about 1400 in 5 years or so, about 280 cars a year, and was not exactly troubling the mass market.
OTL 320 cars per year more than the Ferrari Daytona, ATL make a noticeable dent in Detroit’s sales figures - it’s quite the ask.
OTL 320 cars per year more than the Ferrari Daytona, ATL make a noticeable dent in Detroit’s sales figures - it’s quite the ask.
I'd be surprised if Jenson could build more than the low number they sold, they essentially hand built the whole car.
Putting in a modern for the time production line isn't going to happen for such a small company due to finance.
Putting in a modern for the time production line isn't going to happen for such a small company due to finance.