Jensen Interceptor Six Pack | Spotted

As vehicle names go, there can not be numerous improved than Interceptor. As Interceptors go, there can’t be many better than the SP 6 Pack with its triple-carb 7.2-litre 440 V8 less than that enormous cheesegrater bonnet. And as Interceptor colours go, there cannot be lots of far better than Reef Blue with black leather and a matching vinyl roof. So, Interceptor followers, right now is your lucky working day, since here’s a 3-proprietor, thoroughly-historied Reef Blue Interceptor SP with 54,000 documented miles and a cost tag that may well seem substantial but truly isn’t really.

Rapid tale. Back again in the 1980s someday I examination-drove a person of the Collection 4 relaunch cars and trucks from Jensen right after they’d been reborn in the Midlands. As for each the primary cars, it had a significant Chrysler V8, a 5.9 I feel. I reckoned it would be fun to impress the parents with it, so I made a decision to push it up the M6 to Lancashire for the working day.

That was a salutary practical experience. It was a wonderfully enjoyable push until eventually you designed the oversight of seeking at the gas gauge, when you would essentially see the needle dropping as you went together. I was spending for my personal juice on that gig, so in an try to stave off personal bankruptcy I had to hire the throttle sensitivity of a ballerina with bunions. It felt like a enormous wasted opportunity but what could I do, I was a youthful person of really limited signifies. There was no way I could preserve refilling the 20 gallon tank at solitary-determine mpg charges, even at late 1980s costs.

It was an oddly emotional instant as the moms and dads waved me off the following morning. They have been crying at my departure. This was out of character. Certain ample, a later cell phone phone discovered that their eyes experienced been streaming from standing way too near to the Jensen when it fired up on entire choke.

I burbled thoroughly again to the Midlands with a Sinatra cartridge on the 8-track and significant items cars flashing me impatiently from driving. Handing the keys more than to the chap at the factory felt like undoing my trouser belt after a Mr Creosote fashion slap-up meal. There was a bodily sensation of fiscal aid. ‘Nice auto,’ I reported to the Jensen guy. ‘Shame I experienced to mollicoddle it all over the place, what with the fuel use and everything, ha ha.’ ‘Oh,’ he laughed. ‘You needn’t have bothered, it would have made use of the identical sum of petrol even if you’d thrashed it.’

Hmm. There is a lesson in there someplace, like why didn’t you convey to me that right before. Anyway, the SP that’s for sale below appears to be like alternatively beautiful. Pinning down an exact electricity figure for the twin-choke triple-carbed 7.2-litre 440ci – or any Chrysler-run Jensen for that matter – is about as simple as pinning down a politician, but we are going to go for 385hp and 488lb ft. That compares to the 325hp claimed for the 6.2 and the 330hp claimed for the typical 7.2 – ‘claimed’ becoming incredibly much the operative term for American V8s from this period.

Who understands what type of gas consumption you’d get from an SP. Let’s put it this way, with a supply opportunity of 1,350 cubic toes per moment (two 500cfm carbs on both side of a 350cfm startup/cruising carb) my dad and mom would have demanded field-quality filtration masks in advance of agreeing to stand behind it. As an aside, this 6-pack engine was banned on emissions grounds from US-market Chryslers just following Jensen experienced acquired the units it essential.

In the end the figures and the poisoning will not genuinely issue. What does make any difference is the noise and the come to feel of a stupidly huge V8 chugging through a Torqueflite 3-velocity automobile, and which is a sensation this automobile will give you, really basically, in bucketfuls. The totally amazing Touring physique hand-constructed by Vignale and the sumptuous instrument-loaded cabin are thrown in for absolutely free.

If you are determined to get some Interception in your life, and if this automobile is even half as great beneath as it seems on major, then the asking selling price of under seventy grand for a single of these rare Six Packs, primarily an RHD one particular like this, is really not that mad. They rotted horribly from the base up. Bringing a scabby specimen up to par would price you a terrific deal extra than £70k as these autos are not quick or low-priced to restore. Our vehicle has just breezed as a result of its MOT. There have been no advisories, but we might increase one particular of our have: don’t trouble striving be thorough with your correct foot.

Engine: 7,210cc V8
Transmission: 3-velocity automobile, rear-wheel travel
Power (hp): [email protected],000rpm
Torque (lb ft): [email protected],200rpm
MPG: assume of a modest quantity and halve it
CO2: N/A
To start with registered: 1972
Recorded mileage: 54,600
Value new: £80,000
Yours for: £69,950