INCONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION

Both the Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 6.3 and Jensen FF offered serious pace and advanced technology in understated packages, but they came at a price

- MARTIN BUCKLEY

One is a formal, elegant four-door German saloon with that giant engine: the original 'banker's hot rod', indistinguishable from half a dozen of its more pedestrian siblings in all but those magic numbers on the right-hand side of its bootlid. The other car is a svelte, boutique grand tourer: American-powered and Italian-styled, but from a bravely innovative British specialist manufacturer. Only the double wing vents and a stainless-steel roof-hint at its high-tech status as the world's first four-wheel-drive high-performance road car.

But do the Jensen FF and Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 6.3 really compare? They would have appealed to similar people: buyers more sensitive to image than cost, who had grown out of sports cars but were still keen on driving; who didn't want another Jaguar and considered themselves too young for a Rolls-Royce. At £7273 for the import-duty-inflated Mercedes and £6857 for the Jensen, these cars were pitched into the Silver Shadow class and represented about the most you could pay for an owner/driver vehicle with four seats and high-performance overtones that was also a practical means of transportation.

Unlike certain Italian exotics that were making overtures at the four-seater market, the 6.3 and FF were neither toys nor fashion statements, but working vehicles designed to ease motoring anxieties and massage wealthy egos.

For the purposes of this essay, let's ignore the disparity in the size of the rear seats and the number of doors: they were probably less of a deal-breaker than you might imagine in period.