Changing Ownership
The company had come under the control of the Norcros Group in 1959 and following disagreements Alan and Richard Jensen resigned in 1966. The American car distributor Kjell Qvale became the majority shareholder in 1970 and brought in Donald Healey as chairman.
By 1975, the company's future was under threat, with the redundancy of 700 workers - two thirds of its workforce.
Jensen Motors ceased trading in May 1976. Two new companies: Jensen Special Products (JSP) and Jensen Parts & Service Limited (JP&S) were created to pick up the pieces of Jensen Motors. JSP was created as a specialist engineering and design company from Jensen's development department. JP&S was created to provide parts and service to the existing Jensen customer base. Both JSP and JP&S were bought by a holding company, Britcar Holdings. In 1982 JP&S, with the rights to use the Jensen brand names, was sold to Ian Orford who put the Interceptor back into production as the Mk IV.
Jensen Parts and Service was renamed Jensen Cars Ltd and 11 cars were made before the company was sold to Unicorn Holdings of Stockport and a Mk V Interceptor was proposed but never materialised although a few more Mk IVs were built.
Read more about this topic: Jensen Motors
Famous quotes containing the words changing and/or ownership:
“In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis.”
—Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)
“They had their fortunes to make, everything to gain and nothing to lose. They were schooled in and anxious for debates; forcible in argument; reckless and brilliant. For them it was but a short and natural step from swaying juries in courtroom battles over the ownership of land to swaying constituents in contests for office. For the lawyer, oratory was the escalator that could lift a political candidate to higher ground.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)