Bill Smith's H Type restoration in progress

[zacmarshall]

Before:



During:

and after? May have to wait a while.

[MikeWilliams]

Just to put the record straight, this is of course the very first H type Jensen, the pioneer 4 ¼ litre car which shows a few differences from later examples, particularly in the steering.

Mistaking it for a S is easily done. The H is a much bigger car, but that can be surprisingly difficult to spot in a photograph. The H radiator was much deeper and had a less-pronounced V shape. The bonnet is not actually much higher than an S type, but the radiator goes down a lot lower behind the bumper. The bonnet is much longer as is the wheelbase, and the window proportions are different, but S types came in lo-line and hi-line versions so their window proportions varied anyway, so beware!

One sure point of identification is the side lights on top of the front wings, which were of a deco style on S types, but bullet style on all H types except for H1 which had S type lights!

The full history of this car is now known and I hope Bill and Wendy can be persuaded to write it up for the JOC magazine. It has a fascinating story. I'll not spoil the story by giving much away here, but it was registered when new to Stevenson, Jensen's Company Secretary. It was used as the official car at Richard Jensen's wedding. But as with so many Jensens, it was the subsequent owners and their anecdotes that really make the story live.

The second photo was taken by me in 2002.

Good luck Bill. You've taken on a huge job, but what a car. I think this must be my favourite Jensen, even above my own Drophead version.

[zacmarshall]

whoops, my mistake. I'd put an S in the photo names and meant to check with Bill exactly what the car was - by the time I actually got to put the photos up I'd forgotten...

Zac

[shaun]

The restoration on going today. Keep it going Bill.

[Nick Maltby]

Visited the JOC stand at the NEC today. Excellent as always.

Particularly liked the "80 years since Jensen appearing at London Motor Show theme, with cars to match.

Spoke to Bill Smith about his Jensen H model project and was fascinated by the Richard Jensen wedding connection.

The second photo is from the photo album Bill has on show with the car.







Also had a long chat with Joerg about his wonderful 'White Lady' project. It will be very interesting to see this develop.

Well done to all.

Nick
carsceneinternational.com