The Jensen 541R is a closed four-seater GT-class car built in the United Kingdom by Jensen between 1957 and 1960. The original aluminium prototype appeared in 1953 as the 541 at the

London Motor Show London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 14.9 million. London stands on the River Thame ...

, although this changed to

glassfibre Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass clo ...

for all production cars. Within a year, the new 541 had already earned rave reviews from magazines, notably '' Autocar'', whose testers drove the

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to a top speed of over . It was the fastest four-seater the magazine had ever tested at the time. The 541R employed a low-revving

straight-six engine A straight-six engine (also referred to as an inline-six engine; abbreviated I6 or L6) is a piston engine with six cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. A straight-six engine has perfect primary and secondary engine balanc ...

from the

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. The suspension system came from the

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with independent suspension by coil springs at the front and a live axle with semi-elliptic springs at the rear. The 541R, introduced in 1957, differed from the 541 by using rack and pinion steering instead of a cam-and-roller system, and large disc brakes on all four wheels. The car's styling was by Jensen designer Eric Neale, and was not only considered attractive, but was aerodynamically efficient too; a Cd figure of only 0.39 was recorded, which became the lowest figure at Jensen. The body covered a chassis built by bracing 5-inch (12.7 cm) tubes with a mixture of steel pressings and cross-members to create a platform. The 1957 model carried the DS7 version of the Austin Sheerline's four-litre motor equipped with twin

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s on its right side. The cylinder head was reworked for the lifted compression ratio of 7.6:1 and a "long dwell". The engine had a raised output to at 4100 rpm and . Only 53 cars were built with the engine. In total Jensen built 193 541Rs before it was succeeded in 1961 by the Jensen 541S. This was similar to the 541R, but with a larger body and a GM-licensed

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gearbox, and only 127 cars were built before that model was discontinued to be replaced by the C-V8.

Performance

When the Jensen 541R was tested by '' Autocar'' magazine in January 1958 it achieved their highest maximum speed for a four-seater car at . It was conducted in below-freezing conditions with a "stiff diagonal breeze". 0–60 mph was recorded at 10.6 seconds with fuel consumption at overall with the normal range given as –.

Performance

Further reading