British brand’s revival to start on the track before hitting the road
Jensen is coming back, but it’ll be a while until we see the new Interceptors on public roads, with track-only versions the initial focus.
Since the start of the year, Jensen International Automotive – the current rights holders to the Jensen name – has teased the return of the Interceptor nameplate on a new car, showing off photos of its upcoming model but with little detail.
Now we have one, and it’s not great news for those expecting a full-on revival from the start.
Jensen’s new Interceptor GTX has previously been teased as a grand tourer with a design inspired by the car from the 1960s and 1970s it takes its name from.
The brand has confirmed the new generation Interceptor will be a ‘track-only special’, previewing “a range of future roadgoing Jensen GT models”, though there’s no timeline on when they will arrive.
“We said we would set pulses racing and take Jensen into new territory with our first clean-sheet design, and ahead of the unveiling of our all-new car, we can reveal more on the philosophy behind it,” said JIA managing director David Duerden.
“The Interceptor GTX is no static show car. It is a track-focused special, developed as an enhanced prototype build, which will preview upcoming Jensen models. We can’t wait to unveil it to the world, fittingly sixty years after the launch of the original Jensen Interceptor.”
That plan to first introduce the Interceptor GTX as a track car is at odds with its heritage. Despite previous Interceptors being V8-powered, none were designed to provide ten-tenths performance, and were instead a response to Europe’s grand tourers.
Jordan Mulach
JIA has previously announced the Interceptor GTX will have an aluminium chassis, a bespoke supercharged V8 engine and a “fully analogue driving experience”, while being hand-built in the UK in extremely limited numbers.
Producing the GTX will be a significant departure from the brand’s current operations, which are centred around restoring and re-engineering classic Jensen Interceptors with modern equipment, such as GM’s V8 engines and AP Racing brakes.
It’s not the first time JIA has teased the return of Jensen, announcing in 2011 that it would launch a new Interceptor-inspired grand tourer by 2014, a plan which never eventuated.
