Jensen One by Max René

The only reason I haven’t yet written about the Jensen One by Max René is that, honest, I figured everyone already knew about it.

Eight or nine years ago, I’d favourited the four minute promotional film for the car, and returning to YouTube this week discovered that it had a total of 264 views, and three likes…including the one I’d left.

Granted, it isn’t a fact-heavy promotional film, or performance-oriented, or clever — it is a New Age, synth-driven exposé of how form can transcend function.

Has the world become so vapid that we cheer on lunch tray thieves drifting across acres of abandoned mall parking lots, yet can’t appreciate a failed attempt by an amateur automaker for awkwardly cladding a polarizing French executive car in spats, servos, and kevlar shoulder pads?

These days, technodweebs can load up on meme coins and lease Mansory Elongation’d Cybertrucks, but the real ones, the truly determined, are using their spare hours retrofitting open source driver assistance tech to smart roadsters or white hat hacking classic CAN bus to find unpatched vulnerabilities. They’re soldering prototype rotary dial cell phones, building their own split keyboards from scratch, programming homemade elastic volumetric displays, and rescuing the world’s largest Sony CRT TVs.

Chances are, they’re living in the future, a little bit at a time. 

The Jensen One, on the other hand, is merely a representation of a future meant to be experienced as a consumer. 

It is brilliant, but it’s all image.

It’s all image, but it is based on a Citroën XM.

OK, so still brilliant.

By the time the XM was introduced, however, Citroën's tradition of creating advanced vehicles that would stay on sale for a decade or more was outdated. Customers started wanting newer, arguably more flashy features, such as body kits, alloy wheels, and sports-inspired trims; plus, at this place in the market, leasing gave some a reason to try different marques as its more wealthy buyers swapped cars more frequently. 

Worse, under Peugeot rule, the big Citroëns became bland enough to the point where a Danish product designer could make it look far more futuristic. 

I mean, just look at this thing.

The Jensen One was based off of an early XM’s top trim, the 24 valve 3.0-litre V6 with 177 horsepower, which was, in the words of a reviewer in the standard Citroën XM, “formidable”. He continues:

“The new big Citroen has the finest suspension of any car yet made, as well as the most advanced […] in soft mode, the car rides just as deftly as a Rolls-Royce […] In sports setting the XM handles beautifully, far less body roll and pitch than that which betrayed the CX. Only the car's bulk prevents you from staying with the GTis.” - Gavin Green, CAR Magazine

The only problem early on with the XM, and it was a big one given its clientele, were electrical gremlins. So…active wheel spats then, yes?

Jacob Jensen is an industrial designer, best known for his two decades spent as chief designer for the stereo manufacturer Bang & Olufsen. 

Who's Max René? Another designer — his website proudly displays a number of watches.

What was the nature of their collaboration? Well, the Jacob Jensen website had this quote to go along with the one photo of the car…

“When Max Rene suggested re-designing an existing automobile into a unique automobile, I couldn't resist the temptation to give it a shot.” - Jacob Jensen

The Jacob Jensen website, when it had a page for the car several years ago, also explains what was different from the standard XM:

“A revolutionary detail in the design of Jensen One was the hidden wheels. The body was made in kevlar and carbon fibre, making the construction five times stronger than steel without increasing the weight. The dashboard was equipped with a computer controlled distance meter front and back and an electronic memory, which remembered as many as four individual seat positions.”

There you go. Carbon fibre body kit and really complicated seats. Anything else? Yes, a flat switch panel.

Amazingly, even at a price when new at nearly double that of a standard XM, the only Jensen One by Max René prototype still exists and, abandoned due to the company’s bankruptcy, a second, nearly complete copy — in white — has been unearthed.