Jensen-Healey: the Lotus-engined roadster that chased volume (1972–1976)

Not every Jensen was a hand-built grand tourer for the wealthy. The Jensen-Healey was the company’s bid for the mainstream: an affordable two-seat sports car, built with one of the great names in British sports cars and powered by an engine from another. It became the best-selling model Jensen ever made, and, in the end, part of what brought the company down.

The Healey partnership

When the Austin-Healey 3000 ended in the late 1960s, it left a gap for a modern, affordable British roadster, and Donald Healey wanted to fill it. The project came together at Jensen, backed by the American businessman Kjell Qvale, who had taken control of the firm and saw a chance to sell a sports car in the volume the United States market could absorb. The plan was the opposite of the hand-built Interceptor: a simpler, cheaper, higher-volume car carrying the respected Healey name.

The first production Lotus engine

The Jensen-Healey’s defining feature is under the bonnet. It was the first car to use the Lotus 907, a 2.0-litre 16-valve twin-cam four that Lotus had just developed and would go on to use in its own Elite, Eclat and Esprit. For 1972 this was an advanced engine, giving around 140 bhp and real performance in a light car.

The trouble was that the engine was new and not fully sorted when it reached the Jensen-Healey. Early cars suffered oil leaks and timing-belt and sealing problems, and the warranty bills landed on a company that could ill afford them. The later Mk2 cars were considerably better, and the weak points are well understood now, but the early reputation stuck and it shadowed the car for years.

The American car from West Bromwich

The Jensen Healey, as American advertising usually set the name, was built for the United States above all: Qvale’s dealer network took the bulk of production, cars crossed the Atlantic with the impact bumpers and emissions equipment the market demanded, and the model duly became the best-selling Jensen of all time at around 10,000 cars, several times the total of every Interceptor and FF combined. The trans-Atlantic brief shaped the driving character too, soft enough for American roads, brisk enough for the sports car buyer the Healey name attracted, and it gives today’s owners a practical bonus: a large survivor population in America keeps parts and knowledge flowing both ways, and left-hand-drive cars repatriated to Britain offer a cheaper route in for buyers who can live with the wheel on the far side.

The Jensen GT

In 1975 Jensen added a second body style, the Jensen GT. This was a sporting estate, a fixed-roof shooting-brake with a hatchback tail and a smarter, better-equipped cabin, aimed at buyers who wanted the car’s performance with more comfort and practicality than the open roadster offered. It was made in small numbers in the company’s final period, and it is the rarer and, for many, the more desirable Jensen-Healey today.

What it is like to own

The Jensen-Healey is a brisk, light, enjoyable roadster, and the Lotus engine gives it more pace and a more modern feel than many of its contemporaries. It is the easy, affordable entry into the Jensen marque, and a sorted car makes a genuinely usable classic sports car.

The key to a happy ownership is the engine. Buy a car whose Lotus unit has had its known faults addressed, and budget on the assumption that any unknown engine will need attention. Beyond that, the running costs are the ordinary ones of classic ownership: sensible insurance, dry storage and the routine upkeep of any 1970s sports car.

Buying guide: what to look for

Rust comes first, as on any car of the period: check the sills, floors, front chassis legs, the area around the headlamps and the bottoms of the wings, and on the GT the tailgate and rear structure. A sound body is the foundation of a good car.

Then the engine. Look for evidence that the oil leaks, the cam belt and the sealing have been dealt with, listen for a healthy top end, and treat a cheap car with an unknown engine as a project. A correct, complete car with good history, and ideally one of the improved later cars, is the sensible buy.

Value and legacy

The Jensen-Healey is the most affordable Jensen by a wide margin: usable roadsters from around £6,000, good cars £10,000 to £18,000, and the best, led by the GT, beyond. It is also a poignant car, the volume seller that should have secured Jensen’s future and instead, with the engine troubles and the 1970s downturn, helped end it. For the era, see British classic cars of the 1970s.

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