Which brings me to the point of this article, the winning Car of the Century from the 100 finalists should be none other that the Jensen Ferguson Formula 1966 to 1971. A fine example of this car can be seen in at the Ex. It is stately gray with a red leather interior. The car belongs to the guru of Jensen FF's, Ulric Woodhams of the UK, ergo the license plate ULRIC. The Jensen FF is the best choice for this international contest. It is the only car that was designed in Italy by the legendary Vignale house, hand built in Britain by the equally reputed Jensen Motor Works of West Bromwich and employs a good old American Chrysler Big Block 383:

As all the school children know, Italy designs the best looking cars, British hand built cars are of the highest quality and comfort, and the Americans make the best big motors. Enough for the politically correct reasons, now for the historic.

The Jensen Brothers started building cars as teenagers in the 1920's. Their first project, as with many famous British makers, was to re body an Austin 7 to a sports car (again a cute little yellow example is at the EX). The Austin 7 was given to them by their father thinking it would keep the boys busy and out of trouble.

Well it worked perhaps a little too well. In 1934 the brothers built their first car of their own design, the White Lady. This car employed the Ford V8 my second choice from the list of 100 and an aluminum hand built chassis in a big low slung dual cowl convertible. They built luxury cars through the 1930's using a variety of American motors, one of which was ordered byClark Gable. Clark Gable, aside from being a fine actor was a fine judge of the automobile, owning such cars as the Dusenberg and Mercedes 300SL. Guess where you can find those two cars of the century? As with all British manufacturers, Jensen built military vehicles during the war but unlike the others, they continued to build them using aluminum. These lighter weight vehicles were very important. The lighter weight reduced fuel consumption and kept the vehicle from being stuck in the mud and snow, thus helping the allies to win the war. All kidding aside, the Jensen Brothers continued to build historic vehicles such as the first car with a fiberglass body and 4 wheel disc breaks decades ahead of the Corvette (yes you can see one at the EX). This allowed the Jensen 541 to post the fastest London to Paris time, a record that still stands today.

In the early 1960's Jensen built the CV8 employing a Chrysler V8. The company continued to be an innovator with the  automobile experimenting with 4-wheel drive, anti lock breaks and a HUD. Heads Up Display was tried on a prototype Jensen Healey which also had a 16 valve 2L aluminum 4 cylinder Lotus motor circa 1972 this type is not at the C.O.T.C. it is difficult to include all the cars. As Lord Montagu said during his speech in Toronto "no matter which cars are chosen everyone will disagree with the choice."

The Jensen logo is the letter J with a crown above it. This brings us to the Jensen Ferguson Formula which is basically the Vignale designed Interceptor stretched in the hood area about 6 inches to accommodate the full time four wheel drive. The car also employs 4 wheel anti lock disc breaks and traction control giving it the fastest 0 to 60 to 0 for any stock family Saloon ever. Even more amazing than this is that the car is not a sports car but a luxury personal car which handles like a sports car but drives like a Silver Ghost (again see one at the COTC) .

Other features are of course the 383 V8 with a 330 hp rating, full set of over the shoulder inertia reel seat belts, padded dash, collapsed column steering and unitized body construction.
These important safety features are what we have come to expect in a car but remember this was in 1971. The Jensen Interceptor, which was built until 1976 is also known as the Gentleman's Express. As a Canadian I can not think of a better way to travel to work especially in the winter. It is sad that the car at the EX is the only Jensen FF in Canada and sadder still if you missed the show because it is only scheduled North American stop. However more stops will be added to find out where and when keep reading Old Autos or got to the Car of the Century web site at www.cotc.com. There is also a great Jensen Ferguson Formula Web page at www.lupine.demon.co.uk/jff.html belonging to John Wild.

Disclaimer, the above opinion is not that of the Car of the Century or Old Autos but having talked to Lord Montagu of Beaulieu and Murray Cutler of Bothwell I have made my first and second choices know to them and now you. As the above two car lovers have pointed out to me much is based upon what we know of the list of candidates and our personal experience with that type of automobile. All of us who read or write for Old Autos have a favorite Car of the Century the next article I write will out line the voting criteria and the history of the reason the list has the cars it does on it.

John G. Petryschuk

[Text and External photos of ULR1C kindly contributed by John G. Petryschuk, [email protected] ]