English Charm, Italian Flair and a Global Fan Base

The Jensen Interceptor’s very name suggests exceptional power and drama, tugging at the heartstrings of car lovers. The machine in the flesh makes good on the imagery.

“When I was about 8, my family went on vacation to the Isle of Wight,” said Anton Howard of Leicester, England. “The only thing I can remember about the holiday was being passed on the motorway by a low-flying Interceptor in the outside lane, looking like a U.F.O. with that huge wall of glass at the back.”

The history of this English mongrel — a car decidedly British in build and quirkiness but with a lusty American heart and, on second-generation models, a sleek Italian body — is a tale of birth, death and renewal, repeated regularly over 70 years.

The Interceptor was the handiwork of Alan and Richard Jensen, brothers who built limited-production cars of their own while manufacturing vehicles for other companies, including Austin and Volvo. Better at design and manufacturing than marketing, they never quite made the big leagues of the automotive world, but they left a powerful impression.

“It’s like a Dodge Coronet that went to college at Oxford,” Jay Leno said after viewing a restored 1974 Interceptor on his television show “Jay Leno’s Garage.” The car he sampled marked the high point of the Interceptor’s second life, but it is by no means the entire story.

The first Jensen to wear the Interceptor name was a convertible introduced in 1949 at the Earls Court Motor Show in London. A sedate transportation device rather than a sporting machine, it was capable and comfortable. The proper English motorcar sported a wood and leather interior — a prerequisite for competing with Jaguar and Bentley, which the Interceptor did to a degree, poking the classic automakers from the lower end of the category.

The first-generation Interceptor was constructed largely of aluminum on an extended and reinforced Austin A90 chassis. Eighty-eight were built: 52 coupes and 36 convertibles. Like Jensen machines of the ’30s, which often used Ford V-8 power, the Interceptor was powered by someone else’s engine: a 4.0-liter inline six-cylinder that was borrowed from the Austin parts bin and produced a meek 132 horsepower. But since the Interceptor was a svelte 3,200 pounds, it performed adequately.

One early Interceptor was not like the others. Jensen built it for a Canadian rally driver who brought his own engine to the party: a 331-cubic-inch, 250-horsepower Chrysler Hemi. The engine had been bought from Briggs Cunningham, whose C-5R racecar was Chrysler-powered.

Jensen didn’t just drop this heavyweight into its standard chassis but re-engineered the car to handle the horsepower and weight. Today, this special automobile, which most likely helped shape following generations of Interceptors, is owned by Joerg Huesken of Dresden, Germany.

The second-generation Interceptor, sporting a body by the Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring, arrived in 1966. The Italian design was championed by the Jensen deputy chief engineer, Kevin Beattie, and managing director, Brian Owen, much to the dismay of the Jensen brothers. In ill health, they retired soon after.

Early versions of this grand touring car were built in Italy by Vignale, so this English car had dual Italian parentage. With such distinctive styling, it developed a cult following among Americans who thirsted for something other than what Detroit was producing.

The Interceptor’s English-accented interior featured an abundance of wood and leather and, in the dashboard, the classic Smiths gauges that have graced the best of England’s automobiles.

Several versions — Mark I, II and III — were built from 1966 to 1976 for a total of 6,408 machines. Each new series was slightly modified and improved. All shared the same basic shape. All were equipped with Chrysler V-8s.

The most sophisticated and sought-after second-generation Interceptor was the FF, of which only 320 were produced. With anti-lock brakes and four-wheel drive that predated that of Audi — a four-wheel-drive passenger-car pioneer — the FF was technically elegant. It had quality problems, including weak front axles, but survivors in excellent condition command six figures today.

The most potent Jensen was the ’71-73 Interceptor SP equipped with a 385-horsepower, triple-carburetor, 440-cubic-inch engine. That’s the same engine that Chrysler called the Six Pack and loaded into Plymouth Roadrunners and Dodge Super Bees.

What could be more fun than a proper English motor car with an immensely powerful American V-8? That mix of the elegant and profane is undoubtedly part of the Interceptor mystique and may help explain the devotion of its fans.

Jonathan Pym of Exeter, England, is among them. He had never seen an Interceptor until he spotted one while delivering newspapers as a 10-year-old. After years of looking for a suitable one, he bought his Interceptor in 2010.

“It took another 10 years to get it from a crusty wreck to an award-winning car,” he said.

Thomas Hoeller of Düsseldorf, Germany, a Jensen enthusiast to the core, has traveled Europe photographing and documenting Interceptors and has restored several.

“It is a real passion,” he said. “I try to see every Jensen I can visit by car.”

Mr. Hoeller’s travels took him to Carrozzeria Touring. He had heard that the design studies for the second-generation Interceptor had been lost, so he drove to Milan to hunt for them. There he discovered that the founder’s son had some of the old design studies in blueprint form. Mr. Hoeller left with a copy.

The Interceptor’s last official reincarnation came in 1983: the S4, still equipped with a Chrysler engine and bodywork that was virtually indistinguishable from the Interceptor of the early ’70s. But problems arose, and only 14 were made.

That might be the end of the Interceptor story, save for Jensen International Automotive of Banbury, England. Founded in 2010, the company buys old Interceptors and restores them, replacing the original powertrain with a Chevrolet LS3 engine, which is nearly identical to the C6 Corvette powerplant. In normally aspirated form, it produces 429 horsepower. Other modifications include suspension upgrades, new brakes, new wheels and interior refinements.

Some Jensen purists aren’t fully on board with this type of restoration, but since all Jensens were built with someone else’s powertrain, planting the potent Chevrolet powerplant in the Interceptor engine bay doesn’t seem to be an offense on the order of replacing a Jaguar engine with a Chevy.

Purchased in Britain, the Interceptor R is priced at 260,000 pounds (about $350,000) for a normally aspirated car and £325,000 (about $440,000) for the supercharged version. A U.S. buyer would pay even more.

In brief, an Interceptor from Jensen International Automotive is priced with the exotics of the automotive world. On the other hand, good-condition Interceptors with relatively low mileage often sell for $40,000 or so.

Finally, the imminent birth of another all-new Jensen Interceptor has been hinted at a few times by the Jensen Group, an organization that claims ownership of the Jensen marque. Jensen International Automotive has been mentioned as a partner in this effort.

That machine, the Jensen Interceptor GT, was scheduled to appear in 2016. So far, the rubber has not hit the road.