Tim's 1973 Jensen Healey - Short Film - a burning desire.

The story of how a barn fire led Tim to his dream Jensen Healey , with a few nightmares along the way. The convertible is a blue 1973 with lots of updates.

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Video description

The Jensen Healey is an undeniably pretty classic. It's a vehicle that exudes British charm by the absolute bucket load. Tim has always been a fan of British sports cars, with an impressive vehicle history which many would describe as the 'best of British' - chances are if it's British, Tim's probably driven it. The Jensen Healey however, was never really on the radar...

This Healey came into Tim's ownership by pure serendipity. A barn fire had completely destroyed his caravan, leaving Tim with a cheque and the new-found-desire to purchase yet another British classic - after all, there's still a few to tick off the ol' bucket list!

To be honest the 'honeymoon' period of Tim's Healey ownership was more of a nightmare. After about a year of ownership the engine decided it would like to be reincarnated as a 1000 different engine fragments - the joys of classic car ownership, aye.

Tim - being the stereotypical plucky brit - decided that this was the perfect opportunity to get more power from the engine. After some wizardry installing a new engine Tim's Healey was now producing 219bhp, quite the upgrade from the 140 brake it left the factory with!

Disaster struck once again when it was discovered that the underside of the car resembled a classic alfa left at the bottom of the ocean for 40 years. This unfortunate discovery led to 1000 hours in the body-shop. Turning a bit of a rusty mess into a fully-fledged-concours-winning Jensen Healey.

This is a story of passion - it really sums up why we have classic cars. Tim could have gone out with that insurance cheque and bought a Honda Jazz (there's still no law against it as far as I'm aware) but he didn't. Tim didn't even just buy a classic car, he SAVED a classic, and for that we say thanks. Be like Tim. Cheers Tim! Drive on!

The Jensen-Healey (1972 - 1976) is a British two-seater convertible sports car, the best-selling Jensen of all time. In total 10,503 (10 prototypes, 3,347 Mk.1 and 7,146 Mk.2) were produced by Jensen Motors Ltd. in West Bromwich, England. A related fastback, the Jensen GT, was introduced in 1975.

Launched in 1972 as a fast, luxurious and competent convertible sports car, it was positioned in the market between the Triumph TR6 and the Jaguar E-Type. The 50/50 weight balance achieved by the use of the all alloy Lotus 907 engine led to universal praise for the car's excellent handling.

When production of the Austin-Healey 3000 ended, Donald Healey opened discussions with Jensen Motors, who had built the bodies for Healey's Austin-Healey cars. The largest Austin-Healey dealer in the U.S., San Francisco-based Kjell Qvale, was also keen to find a replacement to the Austin-Healey 3000; Qvale would become a major shareholder of Jensen, making Donald Healey the chairman. The Jensen-Healey was developed in a joint venture by Donald Healey, his son Geoffrey, and Jensen Motors. Hugo Poole did the styling of the body, the front, and back of which were later modified by William Towns to take advantage of the low profile engine and to allow cars for the U.S. market to be fitted with bumpers to meet increasingly strict U.S. safety regulations. The unitary body understructure was designed by Barry Bilbie, who had been responsible for the Austin-Healey 100, 100-6 and 3000 as well as the Sprite. It was designed to be easy to repair, with bolt-on panels, to keep insurance premiums down.

The oil crisis hit Jensen Motors hard, greatly damaging the sales of its very large V8 Interceptor model and thus degrading its financial condition as a whole. The Jensen GT was then hurriedly brought to market, requiring massive labour expense and taxing the firm's budget even further. By 1974 Lotus was able to supply the required number of engines and production reached 86 cars a week but despite this, the overall situation proved to be too much for the company, which, amid strike action, component shortages and inflation, proceeded to liquidate in 1975 and then close in May 1976.

Being a convertible two-seater performance sports car from a prestige car builder the Jensen-Healey scores highly as a collectible car. In recent years the majority of cars advertised for sale in the UK have been imported from the US, with the number of registered cars in the UK rising from 330 in 2014 to 420 in late 2019.

Restoration and maintenance costs are comparatively low for such a rare car, with many parts being available as all the tooling and parts stock was bought from Jensen by a UK company.

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