In 1972 I was working at Road and Track Motors in Inwood Long Island, as a Mechanic. I became close friends with one of the salesmen, Marlo. In our conversations I asked why he did not sell more accessories and performance parts. He answered that He did not know that there was anyone in the service department that could do that kind of work. I took him for a ride in my Alfa Duetto and he began to understand. On the Friday after my taking Marlo for a ride, I went to the show room where Marlo was closing a deal on an all black Jensen Interceptor II, the last of the 383 Chrysler powered cars. The color was crucial as the buyer a famous New York psychiatrist insisted on an all black car but was concerned that he would be giving up performance to the new 440 powered Interceptor. I assured the Dr and Marlo that I could make the 383 powered car exceed the power and drive ability of the 440 III. The key was that the Dr really liked the look of the bare painted top of the II rather than the 1/2 vinyl of the III.

The deal was made and closed the Dr was not concerned at the price I quoted for the work. On Monday I had my local speed shop order a Paxton Super Charger from Granateli, a hydraulic cam from Isky to replace the mechanical cam that the early 383 High performance engines came with. I took the heads off to do some mild porting and port matching with the headers and the new aluminum intake manifold. I sent the heads to a race machine shop I trusted and asked them to Roto machine the combustion chambers to slightly lower the compression and do a 3 angle valve job. I removed the complete stock exhaust system and sent it to a shop in New York City that was doing stainless exhaust for me for Rolls Royce. I asked them to replicate the system using 3 inch stainless steel I eliminated the resonators and requested two truck mufflers as they had the right diameter and volume that I figured I would need.

I was really pushing time as I had agreed to have the car ready in two weeks. I requested for Isky and Paxton to airfreight the supercharger and matching pressurized carburetor As I had to fabricate all the brackets. They complied ( money has always been magic) and I got all the pieces by the first Friday, I had a week to put it all together. The exhaust arrived on Monday as did the heads. By Thursday night the car was running, the rumble shock the windows in the shop. Friday morning I took the Jensen for its first drive I figured it would be best to go against the flow of commuter traffic and headed east on the Southern Parkway my goal was to take the Jones Beach Causeway and then head east As there would be little traffic, this being fall there were few Friday Beach goers.

The drive there I tested the performance reactions just slightly. I was already certain that this may be the fastest car I had built to date, by a lot!. I had specified pulleys for the supercharger that would provide a maximum of 7 pounds of boost at 4600 rpm.. Once on the Causeway I pulled over and waited for a quiet moment when I could see nothing behind me and nothing ahead before pulling back onto the roadway to do my acceleration test.

Oh my god! That was my reaction when I first steeped on the accelerator to the floor and lit up the rear tires. I stopped and waited for the cloud to clear and I could see clearly behind me and still nothing was coming. I would have to be more careful with getting rolling. Power brake against the converter and slowly squeeze the accelerator. This thing is a rocket I just barely had enough time to hit the stop watch at 60mph. When I pulled over and looked at the watch I said no way! I did it again the result was close enough to put an unheard of number, 4.2 seconds. I checked the accuracy of the speedometer and it was actually 2% slow at 60! I turned around and headed for the ¼ mile start marker. Yes there is such a thing it has been marked since the causeway was first finished at a ¼ , ½ , ¾ and a mile. Every so often it gets removed and it is back again in a few days. The next test was the ¼ mile my mind was reeling trying to do the math of what this car could do in the ¼. I started the stop watch as I released the brake once my foot was down I held my breath as the car squatted and accelerated violently. Much too quickly I was hitting the stop watch again. 12 seconds flat. Wow!

Why did this car accelerate so hard? It had a great limited slip, it had more weight to the rear than any American car of this size, so that helped it hook up. But how much power was the 383 creating with 7 pounds of boost? My rough estimate was 6oo horse power. I can not even imagine what the torque numbers would be? Andy Granateli is a big jolly fellow who really knows superchargers!

After getting hold of my wits I decided to head back to the shop and get the car cleaned up for delivery I had one more thing to try. A stock interceptor would hit a brick wall at about 135 mph, it is enough for me to say that 135 came and went before I noticed.

The car was cleaned up and Dr Schwartz had called for updates twice a day for the last two weeks I checked him out on the car and off he went. The black suit, shirt, tie shoes and car went off to enjoy the blackness of the evening night life in New York..

You figure that would have been the end of the story, Nope!

Monday morning I get a call in the shop at about 11am Phil Smith the very British service manager tells me its a call from Dr Schwartz. I thing what broke? I pick up the phone and I hear all kinds of noise in the back ground like an air pump and beeping and clattering of a room of many busy people. A female voice tells me Dr Schwartz is calling from the intensive care unit. Wait I thought he was a shrink? She answers back ,he is and he is also a very persistent patient that has to talk to you. I'm confused, then I hear a voice struggling to speak. It is Dr Schwartz . He said the following, “ it was great (gasp) I was racing this Ferrari going north on the FDR (gasp) I pulled away from him at 80 like (gasp) he was parked. (silence)” What happened I asked. “ I went into the UN tunnel at over 150 (gasp) I was doing good (gasp ) then I hit the Ice (gasp)” “That is enough Dr.” I heard the nurse say. I could also hear that he was hanging on to the phone. “Build me another one (gasp) call my office my (gasp) secretary will give you what ever money(gasp) you need. Make it a III with the 440, (gasp) and get rid of that dam vinyl roof”. True to his word his secretary wrote all the checks. We first found a triple black Interceptor III in Florida, got it transported to New York and built him the ultimate Interceptor III with out a vinyl roof. Since I had 2 months at least before they release him from the hospital. I changed a few things. I had stainless steel headers made put in a taller rear gear and cut the boost down to 5 pounds. It was even more of a beast than the first one.