TEA 700L aka DBY 921M

[Howie]

Hi,
I just found out some very interesting information about my Jensen interceptor chassis number 136/8750 registration number DBY 921M. Earlier this week I contacted Martin Robey for the detailed build information on my car based on the chassis number. I spoke to Keith who was very helpful and photocopied the factory records and sent them to me almost immediately, so if your reading this, thank you Keith. I now know that the car was one of the Jensen factory demonstrators, original registration number TEA 700L. This car is listed as a factory demonstrator in the "original interceptor and FF" book by Richard Calver and in this book there are pictures of the car, page 286 &7 in its original colour of copper brown and also a picture of the engine bay, which were taken from an article in Motorsport magazine, Feb. 1974 when this car was road tested. In fact in the literature supplied to me there sheet dated 8-1-74 "prepare car for press road test" with the work to be carried out before the roadtest, resetting the wiper blade park position, rectify cooling fan out of balance and kinking of the fuel filler hose which is making the tank difficult to fill. I do have a copy of this road test and it now makes much more interesting reading knowing that the actual car tested is the one I now own.
In Richard Calvers book he states that registration plate TEA 700 L was transferred to another interceptor which was photographed for the 1974 main promotional brochure but that the registration is proper only to serial number 8750.
When I purchased my car I received a large document file with the history of the car going back to what I now see was the third owner, she must've put on the personal registration plate 7266WK, and subsequently the DVLA issued the new registration plate at a later date, or possibly when Jensen transferred the original number plate to the other interceptor.
I would very much like to restore the original number plate to the car so if anybody knows its whereabouts and would like to contact me that would be very welcome.
The car was sold by Jensen to a Mr A W. Crawford of Walsall, Staffordshire in April 1974 at the price of £5500. It is interesting that the sales information states that Mr Donald Healey has expressed an interest in offering this car for sale to one of his friends and that he would be borrowing the car for a few days to show to his friend, and who subsequently bought the car .
If anybody else has any further history or information relating to my car I would be very pleased to receive it.
Howie

[Chris_R]

TEA700L does not exist in the DVLA. That means in all likelihood the registration has never been on a car that was registered at the DVLA so whatever car it ended up on was most probably scrapped or re-registered on some other number before computerisation and so the record was never transferred to the computer systems.
What I think this means is that with sufficient evidence you can apply to the DVLA to have the original registration mark re-assigned back to your car on a non-transferable basis. The club has facilities to support that application.

[Howie]

Thank you for that information Chris I will look into the matter on the DVLA website and see if I can get the car registered under the original registration.