How It All Started
Martin Robey founded the Company in 1978 while working as a Time Served Sheet Metal Engineer, he started to manufacture a Front Wheel Arch repair for MK.II Saloons as a joint venture with a friend this was one of the first high-quality repair panels made available at that time and demand soon took off in what was the early beginning of the Classic Car Movement, at the same time an S-Type Saloon was being restored and the Body Shell had extensive corrosion, the owner provided a number of original Jaguar Body Panels but parts such as Sills, Jacking Points, Chassis Sections etc., were only available as general spurious repair panels, these were not considered acceptable as they bared little resemblance to the originals both from a dimensional or material aspect, therefore Martin Robey made the necessary parts creating Templates and simple Jigs to aid future manufacture of the parts if necessary at a later date.
The car, when finished brought in other orders for similar work and the parts, were showed to an existing parts dealer of such parts and orders were placed from then on, it has been both gradual expansion of the business with certain leaps and bounds and many milestones on the way.
Pressing and forming of the higher demand parts soon took over from hand working with a tool-making programme that is still running to date. Part models, patterns and machining is carried out in-house, some parts, usually low volume large body panels are still made by hand using the traditional skills of the sheet metal worker and panel beater.
Between 1987 and 1993 Martin Robey Eng Ltd was the subcontractor for body Panel Pressings for the Jensen car company, towards the end of this period it became known that the Jensen business could be purchased, although seriously interested in purchasing the Jensen business Martin Robey could not agree to the asking price, and continued to supply Pressings as required.
Sometime later it was learned that the company was in liquidation and a receiver had been appointed, Martin Robey contacted the receiver and expressed an interest in the company however many others had also and much ahead in the purchasing negotiations and publicity for their prospective new venture, but at the 11th hour the receiver had no contract or a firm acceptable offer of money, exactly what he needed to keep the whole business together, it looked as if there would be an Auction to sell off everything, memorabilia, tooling, parts and everything Jensen had, which was still all together apart from tooling away at
Sub Contractors.
Martin Robey made an offer, which was accepted and he bought everything that the Jensen Company owned including the Goodwill of the business, The Design rights, Copyrights, Tooling, Memorabilia and Historical Data, Stock of Parts and the entire contents of the works apart from the hired cars, customers cars etc.
The sale contract was signed between Jensen Car Company Ltd. and Martin Robey on the 29th April 1993. Within a few weeks, all the assets of the Jensen Car Company Ltd was relocated to the Martin Robey Group site at Nuneaton, the few remaining staff and some others that had left earlier joined the Nuneaton workforce and the business was re-founded under Martin Robey Sales Ltd. Some Ten Years later all of the main objectives have been implemented, being, keeping the important assets of the business together, continuity of the spares service and restoration departments, whilst improving quality and the range of parts in the inventory, to date many important parts previously unavailable due to lost tooling have been re-introduced and this policy will continue in the future.
The Jensen and Jensen Healey works Parts Department operated by Martin Robey can offer parts from the original stock of Jensen and manufacture parts using the original Tooling and specifications held, vehicles can be serviced, repaired or restored at the Nuneaton works. Martin Robey using the inherited copyrights prints and workshop manual's and certificate of originality from Jensen and Jensen Healey works records we offer an unrivalled service for the Jensen and Jensen Healey owner.
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