How many survive?

I'm often asked how many Jensen cars survive and that's a tough question to answer because obviously not everyone who owns a Jensen tells me about it.

I use rolling five-year averages to estimate the survival rate. I figure that, if I haven't heard about a car in the last five years, it's no longer safe to assume it's still around. Maybe it is; maybe it isn't. Conversely, if I have heard about a car sometime during the past five years, then I'm assuming the worst hasn't happened yet and it's still in one piece somewhere.

I track cars all over the world and I'm always interested in hearing about those which survive or are scrapped. Based on that tracking, here are the tallies of known survivors among the different Jensen models in the trailing five, ten, fifteen and twenty-year periods dating back to 1992. Included for comparison is a tally of all cars known as broken, either definitely or very probably.

Based on the production totals (for those, go here), the corresponding survival and demised rates for these periods are as follows:

Compared with last year, there has been a slight increase across the board in the numbers of recorded survivors, but that's after a year in which there was a slight decrease. These things fluctuate all the time, generally varying about a percentage point either way from year to year. Overall, the rate of Jensen cars known to survive at some point in the past 20 years is stable at around 35%, falling to about 30% over the trailing 15 years and 25% over the trailing 10 years. 

For as long as I have been keeping statistics, the Jensen-Healeys have been the most under-represented model with a recorded survival rate over the past five years of just 6%. Even if we go back 20 years, I cannot account for more than a quarter of them. The fibreglass cars are holding up well and seem to survive in much greater percentages than the later steel-bodied cars, although there are still many examples with no known fate. The C-V8 statistics are particularly strong, the result of continuing deliberate efforts by the JOC's registrar to follow up leads on these cars.

Bear in mind that these figures are NOT the actual survival rates — they are estimates of the survival rates, based on the data available. Don't ask me what the actual rates are — I don't know. If I go back 60 years, I can account for 100% of cars. If I go back one day, I can account for about 0%. That's why you see rolling estimates. Based on the available information, they are the most reliable guide to survivors among Jensen cars. 

Whatever the real rates of survival — and they will be higher than the rates shown here — there is no doubt that the number of survivors is falling. Rust never sleeps and every year more cars succumb to the tin worm, are broken for spares or are lost in accidents. To date, I have tracked 578 Jensens by chassis number (3% of production) as having been broken, either definitely or very probably. This is up substantially on last year when the tally stood at 529. In the preceding years, it was 528, 517, 508, 498, 484, 416, 379 and 315. 

As before, I have included the actual numbers of the different models known to have been broken, either definitely or very probably, together with the percentages of production which these numbers represent. I am quite sure that the Healeys have been broken in large numbers, particularly as the indicated breaking rate for the GT is more than three times that of the Healeys (I should think it would be the other way around). Probably the Interceptor I and II have been broken in large numbers too but, without more information, I cannot substantiate this. Obviously, there is a big middle ground between the 3% known as broken and the 23% known to survive in the past ten years. It means we have a long way to go in finding out what happened to the others.

If I don't hear about cars, I don't record them. If I ask for information and don't get it, the stats reflect this. Hence my regular appeals to those who like to see survival statistics made as accurate as possible. If you have a Jensen, I'd like to hear about it, at least once every five years. If you see a car going to the scrap heap, get the VIN and pass it on so that we know what happened. If you have a spare engine lying around, or a piece of trim with a chassis number crayoned on the back, get the number and pass that on as well because then we'll have a link to a car which has probably been broken. 

I update this list of survivors towards the end of each year so be sure to check back and see how we're doing.

Where are they likely to be?

Give or take a handful, something like 18,976 Jensen cars were made between 1935 and 1992. The vast majority — 91 per cent — were sold in North America and Britain.

The "rest of world" category includes all destinations with less than 1% of the total. There are approximately 50 of these smaller markets so, if you're looking for a Jensen, North America and Britain are the best places to be. To narrow it down further, about half the cars which went to the USA were sold in California. This means that a quarter of all Jensen cars — most of them Healeys — went to that one State. I should think that a high proportion have now been junked. In general, I receive relatively less information about cars in the USA than anywhere else, which would go a long way to explaining why the observed survival rate of Healeys is so low. Most of them went to the USA and that's the region from which I am least likely to receive information about vehicle fates.

To the end of 2011, I've traced 4326 Jensen survivors at some point in the past decade, up by about 80 on the trailing 10-year period last year. By continent or geographic region, this is where they are now:

Special note for Interceptor III owners

If your 1975 or 1976 Interceptor has one of the following serial numbers, I'd be especially interested to hear from you. This is because the factory papers on these cars are pretty thin and I need your help to fill out the history. All but four or five of these were exported so they could conceivably be anywhere by now. The VINs in question are:

1402, 1650, 1791, 1813, 1820, 1846, 1871, 1873, 1874, 1900, 1903, 1906, 1920, 1922, 1938, 1946, 1949, 1996

Model histories

For more on the individual models mentioned above, have a look in the histories guide.

Richard Calver

© Richard Calver 2000–2011

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