The mechanical package only made the Jensen FF more fascinating. Beneath its long, slightly extended bonnet sat a mighty 6.3-liter Chrysler V8, also known as the 383 cubic-inch unit, producing around 330 horsepower. It was paired with a Torqueflite three-speed automatic gearbox, giving the car the kind of effortless muscle that suited a grand tourer perfectly. This was not some delicate experimental machine. The FF combined brute American V8 power with advanced traction and braking technology in a way few rivals could even attempt. The bonnet itself had to be modified with dual vents and a noticeable power bulge to accommodate the extra hardware that came with the four-wheel-drive setup, making the car subtly different from the Interceptor.
That ambitious engineering helped the FF earn major praise in its day, even taking home the Car of the Year title in 1967. Yet brilliance did not make it common. The problem was the price. A Jensen FF cost roughly fifty percent more than a standard Interceptor, which immediately pushed it into a tiny niche. Buyers loved innovation, but they also had limits, and the FF was pricy. Between 1966 and 1971, only 320 pieces were built in total. Of those, just 195 belonged to the first-generation MkI series. In other words, this was never a car you stumbled across casually, even when it was new. Decades later, finding one is even more notable.
The newly rediscovered car is chassis 119/103, finished in the understated shade Mist Grey. It was ordered new on January 30, 1969, by Mr. St Pickard through a local Jensen dealer. He reportedly paid £5,600 for it, a huge sum at the time and the equivalent of well over £113,000 today. To complete the deal, he traded in his 1962 Mercedes-Benz 220SE. That detail alone says plenty about the kind of customer Jensen was attracting. This was not an impulse buy. It was a deliberate purchase by someone who wanted something special, modern, powerful, and capable in a way ordinary GT cars simply were not.
