My two uncles Alan and Richard Jensen produced a double decker and to date I have been unable to discover a photograph of any of these. I wonder if anyone can help me. One registration number I have is GDL 264, but I don't know where to start searching. I also have a number of other registration numbers relating to Jensen buses.
Arthur Jensen
04/06/14 - 15:22
All I can tell you is the reg no was for Isle of White reg'd vehicles
Roger Broughton
04/06/14 - 15:22
There's a brief mention of GDL 264 on this very forum - see Jensen Buses & Coaches - but here's an interesting little article from an Omnibus Society newsletter. Note that GDL 264 was definitely single deck, and I have found no evidence of any Jensen double deckers being produced. Scroll down to page 14. http://omnibus-society.org/media/
David Call
04/06/14 - 15:23
I don't know about GDL 264, but there certainly was a double decker GDL 764, which I believe was one of a pair delivered new to Seaview Service of Ryde on the Isle of Wight. It was later preserved and here is a link to a photo of it at a rally: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
John Stringer
04/06/14 - 17:50
I'm sure I've read an article and seen a photo of a weird front wheel drive double decker that was built in the 1930's and was fitted with a German made radial engine.
Something niggles in the back of my mind that it was a Jensen, but I may be mixing it up with something else.
Eric Bawden
05/06/14 - 07:26
Eric, the double decker you are thinking of was manufactured by Gilford, of High Wycombe. This was exhibited at the Motor Show of 1931, but the Junkers engine was reputed to be incomplete. It was later converted to a trolleybus and ran in Wolverhampton. There was a single deck counterpart, which I don't think ever ran in passenger service. When the Gilford company folded in 1935, these two revolutionary vehicles were sold for scrap for £7 10s. As far as I know, Jensen never built any double deckers at nay time. Their single-deckers were rare enough!
Michael Hampton
05/06/14 - 07:27
Eric, would you be thinking of the very advanced, for the time, Gilford double decker which was later converted into a trolleybus ??
Chris Youhill
05/06/14 - 07:27
Can't add anything on Jensen other than the front wheel drive double decker you are thinking about was probably the Junkers Jumo engined Gilford referred to in a previous posting on OBP/front_wheel_drive_gilford
Mike Morton
05/06/14 - 09:43
The Jensen, or JNSN from its cut out radiator lettering shape, was conceived before WW2 as a semi integral lightweight lorry, that, by virtue of weighing less than 50 cwt unladen, would not be subject to the 20 mph speed limit for heavier haulage vehicles. It went into limited production after the war with a Perkins P6 engine and a David Brown 5 speed gearbox, being particularly favoured for pantechnicons, but some were produced as buses. Sparshatts built the body structure. When the 20 mph limit on lorries was raised in 1951, the raison d'être for the relatively expensive JNSN simply evaporated, and it disappeared from the scene around 1952. I am sure than none was bodied as a double decker.
http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/Museum/Transport/Buses/Jensen.htm
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jennyoverall/3196921287/
Roger Cox
05/06/14 - 09:45
This maybe of interest also. OBP: Iain Simms Jensen Gallery
Peter
Thank you gentlemen for clearing up my confusion between Jensen and Gilford.
Hutchings & Cornelius of South Petherton had two Jensens new in 1950. Having Sparshatts B40F bodies they both lasted till 1964 and were registered MYA 391 and MYA 816.
Eric Bawden
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