Jensen Motors | Their Swedish Distributor
Wendels Bil & Motor -became the Swedish distributor for Jensen Motors in 1974. The Company was founded by Henning Wendel, and run by him, along with his son, Lars Wendel. To date very little information has been known about this small Swedish motor sales company.
The Swedish academic, and Jensen enthusiast, Jakob Dittmar, has researched the history of Wendels Bil & Motor, gaining much first-hand information through several telephone interviews with Lars Wendel. Unfortunately Henning Wendels died in 2008, and Lars Wendels died in 2022.
Jensen Motors | Their Swedish Distributor | Background & History
Henning Wendels
Wendels Bil & Motor was founded and run by Henning Wendel and his son, Lars Wendel, from 1961 until 2001.
Their grandfather had been a bicycle mechanic, and then had one of the early garages for lorries and later cars in the Limnhamn-area in the South of Sweden.
Henning Wendel (1918-2008) became a car mechanic and one of the heads at the garages for Förenade Bil in Malmö in 1938.
During his time at Förenade Bil he advanced to their customer service department, travelling nationally and internationally, and even working as their race mechanic.
Föreneade Bil’s focus was on Nuffield-cars (Morris, MG and Wolseley), but they also offered BMW and others.
In 1962, Henning, and his son Lars, started Wendels Bil & Motor. Due to Henning Wendel’s experience and excellent reputation around British cars, Wendels Bil & Motor gravitated immediately to British cars.
Lars Wendels did an apprenticeship as a car mechanic at BMW in Munich when he and his father first started the company. In fact later on he even did an apprenticeship as an airplane mechanic.
Both father and son were mechanics at heart, but as the Company moved towards representing various car makes, and undertaking car sales, Lars, in particular, had to shift his emphasis from mechanics to sales.
The Company was initially located in a garage that had been changed into a workshop in Musketörgatan in Malmö-Kirseberga, a generally working-class area. Although, they only had a workshop, without any showroom, they started representing Aston Martin, selling two in the first year.
Most presentations and orders for cars were arranged for during the main car exhibitions in Malmö and later Stockholm. Wendels Bil & Motor were a driving force behind Motormässan Malmö from 1967 to 1990, as they always had quite some exclusive cars in stock, they usually helped out to fill the exhibition when cars from Britain did not turn up.
Some people in the region clearly remember seeing nice sports and luxury cars in and around Wendels’ workshop when they were young: A window to a world far beyond everyday Sweden and its average cars, at that time.
From their humble start, Wendels Bil & Motor managed to represent some of the more exclusive marques, including Lotus, Morgan, Jaguar, Aston-Martin, and Jensen. To stay in business, Wendels depended on a good complement of them all.
Jensen Motors | Their Swedish Distributor | Jensen Distribution
Lars Wendels (left), and Henning Wendels (right). The photograph was taken in their small workshops at Musketörgatan, Malmö. The photograph was taken for the well-known Swedish morning newspaper, the Göteborgs-Posten, and was published on 20th April 1974.
Having already a good relationship with Lotus, it seemed natural for Lars Wendels to have been interested when Jensen Motors brought out their Jensen Healey sports car using a Lotus engine.
Former Jensen Motors Sales Manager, Tony Marshall, remembers Lars Wendels coming to the Jensen factory at West Bromwich, to discuss being an official distributor. Marshall takes up the story,
“From memory, I believe Lars came to the factory in 1972, after showing an interest in our new Jensen Healey. Myself , and Dick [Richard] Graves, met with him when he arrived, and gave him the ‘usual’ Jensen Motors experience, showing him around the various Bays with building of cars in progress.
After a lunch, where Lars met our Managing Director, we introduced him to our Technical Service Representative, Mike Chambers, and to our Service Manager, David Millard.
The introduction and meetings with Mike [Chambers], and David [Millard] meant that Lars had already met the main contacts regarding mechanical issues, if he needed to discuss anything of that nature over the phone from Sweden at a future point.
The meetings went well, and we agreed to the firm Wendels Bil & Motor becoming our distributor in Sweden. Between the period of 1972 through to 1974 (when I left Jensen Motors), I met Lars on a number of occasions.
Out of interest, just because a company became a distributor or agent, didn’t necessarily mean they would immediately start buying cars from us to keep in stock. Particularly those from Europe and overseas.
However, as a part of the conditions of becoming a distributor or agent, we expected them to take a certain amount of parts, and special service tools, as a minimum.
Unfortunately, although everything was fine at the start, the relationship between Jensen Motors and Lars Wendels worsened with time, particularly leading to the time I left Jensen Motors in 1974.
My initial reaction was that Lars could be a ‘difficult’ man , and I was proved correct. There may have been a lot of reasons for the worsening relationship, with some being understandable from his side.
I fear that some voices from the Lotus factory might have been slightly anti-Jensen, after the Lotus engine nightmare associated with the Jensen Healey – perhaps that was a starting point. But what ever had sparked his ill feeling towards us, he would later talk critically of how Jensen Motors operated, and was particularly critical of our engineering.”
Jensen Motors | Their Swedish Distributor | Jensen Car Sales In Sweden
Exactly when Wendels Bil & Motor officially became distributors for Jensen Motors isn’t known, but it is Marshall’s belief that Wendels would have become an official distributor at some point in 1972, at which time he visited the factory.
However, there exists a Guarantee Claim numbered ‘4081’ from the chassis file of a left-hand drive Interceptor chassis 125/5004, which shows Wendels Bil & Motor as the distributor or agent, and confirms this car had passed through their workshops in September 1970 for paint rectification. Marshall tells us more,
“The fact that a name was typed against Distributor or Agent, on the Guarantee Claim, didn’t necessarily mean they were an official Jensen distributor or agent. In the case of the Guarantee Claim ‘4081’, Wendels Bil & Motor were undoubtedly the company the owner decided to take his car to for rectification.
Perhaps he had bought cars from them before , or perhaps they were the nearest company capable of the necessary rectification work.
If it was within the UK, then there was an excellent coverage of official distributors or agents to undertake the work, within Europe & overseas at that time less so. Interestingly, it is quite possible that the work Wendels undertook to the Interceptor cemented an idea that they might ask if they could become a distributor.
That said, it was a year or two later that Lars Wendels contacted us in this regard. I still think it was the introduction of the Jensen-Healey that brought about his interest in Jensen cars.
The letter from Lars to myself dated 19th January 1973 seems to confirm the fact that he had come to the factory in 1972, and at some point that year, I had taken him out in a Jensen-Healey. “
Jensen Motors Guarantee Claim number ‘4081’ issued to Wendels Bill & Motor
Letter from Lars Wendels to Tony Marshall at Jensen Motors. His clear car brand favourite was the Lotus, to which he used as his letterhead logo.
All in all, it is believed that seventeen Jensen-Healeys and about twelve Interceptors were sold by Wendels Bil, & Motor, along with just two Jensen GT cars. One of the Jensen-Healey cars was chassis number 15036, a MK.II Jensen-Healey imported into Sweden by Wendels Bil & Motor in 1974.
Shortly after importation, Wendels Bil & Motor loaned the car to the Swedish car magazine, Teknikens Värld (the car survives to this day and resides in Denmark under the ownership of Niels-Erik Manniche). Afterwards the car was sold by Wendels Bil & Motor to a local customer, Anders Bergman.
Wendels Bil & Motor loaned a Jensen-Healey to the Swedish car magazine, Teknikens Värld in 1974 (chassis 15036).
The introduction page to the Jensen-Healey handbook with the Wendels Bil & Motor name and address stamp, along with the details of the first owner.
Jensen Motors | Their Swedish Distributor | Exhaust Certificates & Collaboration With the Swiss Jensen Distributor
While import duties were not particularly high during those years, according to Lars Wendel, the import of Jensen and other cars was of course dependent on and influenced by the regulations on legal exhaust limits. In 1971, the legal limit for carbon monoxide was set at 4.5 %.
Edgar Schwyn
In 1975, exhaust certificates became obligatory. Each and every new car had to be certified that it fell within legal limits for Sweden, for it to be imported and registered in Sweden from that time.
This was an individual certificate for each car, not a blanket certificate covering all cars of that type.
Lars Wendel who had taken the lead in the company more and more, was able to organise this certification with the help of a friend who worked for Lotus in England.
As the procedure was very similar to the conditions for importing to Switzerland, Wendel synchronised these efforts with, and collaborated with, the Swiss representative, Edgar Schwyn.
According to Lars Wendels, Jensen Motors were occupied with other things and were not able to offer real help with these issues at that point.
However, bearing in mind the comments and thoughts from former Sales Manager, Tony Marshall, it might have been, that having put up with a period of negative and critical discussion from Lars Wendels, that Jensen Motors decided to step back from getting unduly involved
Jensen Motors | Their Swedish Distributor | Post-1976
After the closure of Jensen Motors in 1976, Wendels remained the main provider of spare parts for Jensen cars in Sweden. In 1986, they moved into bigger premises in Arlöv, right at the outskirts of Malmö. In 1988, they expanded the showrooms further. Lars Wendel bought another company, Autoropa, and through them started to represent Ferrari in 1992 as well as Maserati in 1998.
Lars and Henning Wendels photographed by Göran Svensson for Bilvärlden in 1989.
Their BMW representation was transferred to Förenade Bil as BMW did not allow sales of new cars of other marques in the same showroom.
Lars Wendel sold the company to focus on his other company while Wendels Bil & Motor moved to Trelleborg in 2001 and added MG to its representations, later Subaru.
Wendels Bil & Motor lost the representation of Lotus. Although they had been Lotus distributors since the early 1960s, Lotus were now demanding that all their distributors opened new prestigious showrooms for the sales of Lotus cars.
The financing of such a new showroom for Lotus was too excessive for Wendels, and he reluctantly gave up his Lotus distribution.
Some years later, in 2009, the company was put into administration, the remaining spare parts store for Jensen-Healey being sold off at that time.
Jensen Motors | Their Swedish Distributor
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Jakob F. Dittmar, Malmö University | Niels-Erik Manniche | Tony Marshall, former Sales Manager, Jensen Motors
COPYRIGHTS: The Jensen Museum | Jakob F. Dittmar, Malmö University | Göran Svensson
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: If you have any additional information about this feature, please contact us at archive@jensenmuseum.org or telephone on: +1694-781354
or at jakob.dittmar@mau.se
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