(first posted 2/24/2018) The Capri, especially with the V6, was a real bright spot on the market in its early days; it was even the number 2 selling import at one time. The V6 gave it sparkling performance in a class where inline fours were pretty much all that was available. The 1974 model got a larger 2.8 version with a bit more power, but that was all just to offset the 245lb weight gain since the 1972, due to 5 mile bumpers and other changes. But that still left it at the top of its class. And of course, with decidedly better performance and handling than the new Mustang II with the same engine. Why Ford didn’t base the Mustang II on the Capri instead of the Pinto is a question that will never be answered for me.
I bought a 1972 Capri V6 4 speed as my first new car. I was ready to travel 2 plus hours to get a red one; when the cars began to arrive in Columbus, Ohio, by the truck load. I got exactly what i wanted, green with tan interior at less than list price.
I had it less than 2 years, and someone offered just under what I had paid. (See article price went right around $3000 to $4000.) I found a used 1972 Honda 600 and then there was an oil crisis. Someone just had to have that. I traded cars a lot.
I had a 77 Capri with a 2.8 4 speed. It was the biggest piece of shit that I ever had out of 50 or so cars. And I even managed to drop the engine out of it on my hand and cut the tendons in my finger while trying to reseal the engine. The gear shifter broke off twice in about 3 months. Nice car to look at and it was a nice car to drive when it was working, which wasn’t very often. Pure bag of dirt.
Love these old road tests, again thanks for posting. As far as the question goes, two answers. One being cost, the other being “not invented here.” There was an almost pathological disdain for foreign engineering in the halls of GM and Ford at the time. The real death knell was dealt by the crashing dollar.
It’s hard to imagine today, but in ’71 I bought a new Volvo 142S Automatic for $3150 including California T&L. By 1974, that price had ballooned to almost $5000. In 1975, I bought a new 2002 with a sunroof for $3600, delivered in Munich. By 1976, it was a $6500 car. I picked on both those models because there were very few changes in the actual cars other than the MSRP’s.
There was an almost pathological disdain for foreign engineering in the halls of GM and Ford at the time.
Yeah, what he said. Ask yourself why, when Ford decided to build a subcompact here, they gave us the Pinto, instead of building the Cortina here.
The Cortina became a very attractive car in it’s later years. One of my favorite clips from “Sleepers” is Nigel Havers flogging a Cortina wagon through Scotland.
Thanx Steve, that’s a great clip .
-Nate
Ad copy at the time for the V6 “the sexy European in a new, more passionate version”, I remember the TV advert in the early 70s that claimed the Capri was the second best selling European import in the US, being bested only by the VW bug.
By the time my bank account was looking healthy, the Capri II was out, and looking particularly interesting in the black and gold “Black Beauty” package. Went for a look-see and quickly discovered the car was designed for sub 6′ people. I am developing a theory about R&T test car data panels. The data panel only includes the “accommodation” block with data on leg and headroom if the car is roomy. If the car is cramped inside, the “accommodation” block is left out. I noticed the “accommodation” block was also missing from the VW Scirocco test posted a while back. Unfortunately, I tossed all my back issues of R&T about 25 years ago, so I can’t backtest the theory.
Why Ford didn’t base the Mustang II on the Capri instead of the Pinto is a question that will never be answered for me.
Probably a big part of it was NIH (Not Invented Here). Ford introduced the two sided ignition key in 65. My 80 Renault and 85 Mazda both had two sided keys, but a coworker’s late 80s New Yorker had a single sided key, just like Mopars of 25 years earlier, before Ford introduced the two sided key. The pump seal company I worked for in the late 70s had the same provincial/xenophobic attitude toward the seals it’s German subsidiary developed. The German seals were always derided as “WWs” (Won’t Work), but they worked just fine and met the customer’s needs.
One thing I can see in the Mustang II’s favor was the potential to share parts, and therefore tooling, with the Pinto. A Capri/Cortina based coupe would have required all new tooling be created for US production.
Besides, a Mustang is a hard sell without a V8. A Mustang on the 2 door Maverick platform would have been a very interesting proposition as the 302 would fit just fine, without the reengineering the Mustang II got in 75..
Mustang II’s shared lots of mechanical parts with the Pinto, one big exception being the steering gear. However according to the 1974 Pinto assembly plant manual I have, the only actual body structure they shared was the rear floor pan stamping, and some minor structural reinforcements attached to the rear floor pan stamping.
A V8 will fit the Capri.
Even a 351C! A high school friend of mine Dad did that very swap.
Ford could build Mustang II in same plant as Pinto much more easily (and cheaply).
The dash, with detail differences, carried over to the Capri II. The rear lights on these facelifted Capris were larger too, replacing the small units shared with the humble Mk.I Escort and the ‘power bugle’ bonnet was standardised. Nice looking ride, though nicer still without those big plastic bumpers.
Of course I had to Google a “power bugle” 🙂
Nicer looking than the Mustang II, better lines and proportions.
The archrivals, side by side.
I didn’t fit in a Manta either. Tried one out at the Detroit show in 71 or 72. My head was hard against the headliner. After trying one out, I laughed every time I saw the Manta advert on TV as the guy in the car had tons of headroom. It might have been actor Ron Carey in the advert. Carey stood 5′ 4″.
Ron Carey! “Barney Miller” reruns are my jam. Yes, he would have had no trouble with not hitting the headliner in the Capri. I wanted to buy a Capri II back in high school (before I bought my ’76 Malibu), but even my mom was like, “Nope… you’re too tall for this one.”. (My dad was only slightly taller than Ron Carey, and I’m 6′. 🙂 )
Paul, thanks for re-running an article on one of my favorite cars of all time.
I’m 6-2 and fit very well in my first car, a ’73 Manta. Maybe I’m more long-legged?
My sister’s very first car was a 1974 Capri V6 with an automatic for her in brown. Early on I would do basic care of the car and I can say it was a great car. Performance not bad for an automatic. However, after she decided being away at college, in San Diego, where I was she went to UC Berkeley which was near my parents new home after San Diego. I have no idea what became of the car and this article reminds me to ask her the fate.
The other curious thing about the Capri is that I first learned how to drive a stick in a friend’s 1972 Capri with the 2000cc engine. I then next tried my hand with a 1973 911E which was like night and day between the two. I would love to get my hands on a earlier V6 Capri but they are just as hard as finding hen’s teeth and if one is found it has been bastardized beyond recognition.
I takes awhile, but every now and then CC gets to talking about a car I know quite well.
When the first Capris hit dealer showrooms in late 1971(?), I made the trek to the nearest Lincoln-Mercury dealership, it was in downtown Memphis. I was a bit intimidated as I had never gone into a dealership for a high end/luxury branded car by myself. The lone Capri sat in a back corner of the showroom. It looked almost like it was being punished for thinking it was good enough to mix it up with real cars. I didn’t get to do more than collect a brochure as the salesman knew young sailors didn’t have much money.
A year later, the 1600 engine is superseded by the 2000 four cylinder and the V6 isn’t quite here (in the U. S.), yet. I finally drove one and was as dazzled as many of the car magazines test drivers were. I considered trading in my 68 Cyclone for a Capri with the 4 cylinder, but car magazines promised that the wait for the V6 would be worth it. I eventually traded the Cyclone for a craptastic Vega. But I bugged my older sister about the V6 Capri with the idea she should trade her V8 Mustang for one. I wanted her to buy one so bad, I almost “fronted” her the money for a purchase. And she did eventually buy a 74 V6 with a manual transmission and sunroof (the only car she ever would own that had one). She loved that car. I would drive a few 73 V6 Capris with the “smaller” /2600 V6 before I got to drive her car.
All I can say is that the difference between a 73 and a 74 V6 Capri is somewhat like the difference between the 65/66 Mustang V8, and the 71/72 Mustang…with the same displacement V8. I was disappointed by the 74’s much heavier feeling steering.
BTW, in 1974 one sister bought a new Mustang II while the other bought a new 74 Capri, both V6 and manual transmissioned cars. Take a good look at both cars, it is amazing how much alike they LOOK. But to drive the Mustang was like a 2/3rds scale Thunderbird while the Capri did a pale imitation of a V8 Mustang.
I went on to drive several more Capris of different years, though never a Capri II (Europe also got a Capri III). I strongly prefer the 4 cylinder models. I even owned one for a about a year until the restoration it needed overwhelmed me.
Steve, I thought there was something the matter with me. When I took the 73 Capri I wound up buying for a test drive, I seemed to fit okay. But afterwards I was always struck by how small the interior on these cars is. (I am 6 ft 4.)
John Wayne chased a bad guy in the streets of London with a Capri II in the movie “Brannigan”.
In today’s conspiracy theory world, I’m sure that there would be some John Wayne fans who would insist that Duke never drove that Capri. It was a lookalike double.
Bah; it’s all CGI. Amazing what they could do with 4K RAM back in the day.
Well, after reading the discussion above about the interior space I’m the Capri, I’ll just note that John Wayne was 6 ft 4 in tall…
The poor hapless Capri owner must’ve been Richard Hammond’s (of ‘Top Gear’ fame) dad…..
That Jag sure smokes under acceleration .
Could one of these really keep up with a MK Jaguar ? .
They passed the same VW Beetle twice =8-) .
-Nate
I bought a 1974 Capri V6 (metallic rootbeer brown) with a stick brand new in the summer of 1974. Got a good deal—$3,900, if I recall. The review nails it. Solid, great handler, strong (for the time and the money) performer. And the FM radio did suck.
However, mine was plagued with electrical gremlins as were ’73 and ’74 Capris owned by three of my friends. At the one year mark, I sought their advice, which was “get out–it gets worse from here”.
At the age of 19, I made the rash assumption that the problem was the “tempermental foreign car” that I’d grown up hearing about all my life, and coming from a Ford family, I traded it, after one year and one day of ownership, for a brand new 1975 Ford Mustang II notchback.
Worst move I ever made. The problems with the Mustang II were less mysterious but more frequent. How I made it through three years with that car is a mystery to me, but it was the last domestic I bought for 18 years and the last Ford I bought….ever.
Many times I wished I’d just ridden out the storm with the Capri, because when it worked, it was wonderful. And of course, today, they’re virtually extinct. The odds of finding one for a weekend toy, even here in California, are slim and none.
In the US, these were ‘Mercury’ Capri’s.
I always remember how these were only sold by Lincoln-Mercury dealers (or Ford-Lincoln-Mercury dealers). There were a lot of Ford-Mercury dealers and, apparently a a handful of solo Mercury dealers, and they were not allowed to sell the European Capri.
The later U.S.-built 1979 Mercury Capri (which was a restyled Ford Mustang) was sold by these Ford-Mercury dealers and solo Mercury dealers.
Thats interesting your market Capri got the engine upsized to 2800 the cars we got had the engine downsized to 2800, originally the UK built Capri used the Zodiac 3.0 V6 engine with higher compression but the Essex mill was such an unreliable turd it was dropped, Kiwi MK4 Zephyrs all got the Essex 3.0 from 67 as the 2.5 V6 Essex was total rubbish and quite gutless, the Cologne engine was a much better version in all displacements
I was the proud owner of the 74 german bullt capri v6 2.6 liter it was Quick but did have a low high end could have had a 5 speed to keep the rpm down at highway speeds I backed off on the acelerator in a ice storm my back wheels broke loose + slid off the road backwards end over end sad ending to my favorite car ever was lemon twist yellow with black leather interior
My high school’s parking lot (late 70’s/early 80’s) had a few Capri V-6’s in residence. By the time they reached second (and third) hand status, they were regarded as cheap fun. It’s a wonder any of them survived the constant thrashing and high-speed abuse inflicted upon them. Fun cars to drive (and thrash). The kids stuck with hand-me-down Vegas and $125 Pintos missed out on the fun.
We too had a few of them in our High School parking lot. One guy had one with a swapped in 351 Cleveland in it. It was one of the fastest cars at school.
Much loved in the UK, they were making the 2.8i all the way into the mid eighties. They were seen as pretty much a retro throwback, but cheap thrills nonetheless.
It’s amazing how few are left, considering the hundreds of thousands that were sold.
Being one of those teenagers that devoured all of the car magazines in the early 1970’s, as I looked forward to my driving years just around the corner, the V-6 Capri was by far the best choice, on paper. Powerful but nimble, reliable and easy to fix, comfortable and attractive to look at.
When I started driving actual cars, however, I was so disappointed in the Capri. Though it was really fast, it didn’t impart the sensation of speed very well. The handling was solid, but the car didn’t feel nimble. The seating position, the outward visibility, and the controls were just not quite right.
I ended up with a lighter, less capable, and less powerful Toyota, in which the seating position was just right and the controls fell right to hand. It maybe didn’t handle as well as the Capri, but it communicated so much more of what was going on while you drove it.
There was nothing that I could single out that was really awful in the Capri, but nothing “wowed” me either, so the Japanese stole a sale. The Toyota, uncharacteristic of them, had a few problems, but I never regretted passing up the Capri. Perhaps the biggest failing of the Capri is that it just didn’t feel like a superior car to drive, even though it beat all comers on paper, and by quite a bit in the engine room.
The NIH rule is especially peculiar because the “over there” was part of the same company, and many of the engineers and designers “over there” were exiled from “here” in Detroit. There was nothing foreign about those plants except the address. It would have been cheaper to reuse some of the engineering, but that didn’t matter either.
Ford’s Euro and Australian branches had all sorts of superior small cars from 1935 to the present, but Ford couldn’t bring itself to use any of those ideas until the Escort.
Well, we did get the Fiesta – briefly – before the Escort, but you’re right that we missed out on a lot of interesting cars.
One of my favourites. Also known as the “Beu de Cologne” over here. But I prefer the pre 72 european version, with the smaler headlamps and without these big bumpers. Heres one I saw recently in a car show.
This one was sanding at the same spot for more than 30 years. Sometimes I went out of my way to have another look. Last year the garage behind it was renovated and the car disappeared. I hope it moved into the repaired garage but the realist in me thinks otherwise.
10-15 years ago, there were fairly active Capri clubs, one North American, one California-based, on the internet (the clubs in Europe and Australia appear to be doing well).
The North America club has kept its calendar current (there’s an event this summer) and has profiles of the cars and owners:
http://www.capriclub.com/profiles.htm
Clearly, several of the survivors have been converted into racers.
The Southern California Capri Club’s website is now a dead link.
Interestingly, while checking all that out, I ran across an article that Hagerty (no relation) published just last month about the Capri and one man (the founder of the North American Capri Club)’s quest to save it. He estimates that maybe only 2,000 survivors (in various conditions) exist here in the U.S. and that price and availability of parts as these cars were 10-30 years old caused most to be scrapped. Rust also claimed a fair number:
https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2018/01/16/save-the-endangered-capri
These were beyond my $$$ reach at the time, but were always tempting.
This Sept. 1971 photo has them unloading (from Germany) in Detroit Harbor. Was it common to bring Euro-imports through the Seaway like that? I figured they all came into the East coast:
NIH was always a huge factor with the American based manufacturers. It caused massive duplication in their logistics chain, increased costs and ultimately caused quite a bit of their decline. One of the advantages in Japan, for example, is that all manufactures used standard components components.
Iacocca could have Americanized the Cortina, but instead created his very own Pinto.
Another part, in my humble opinion, is some kind of bias against Western Europe. I am surprised when certain Americans I have met over the years seem to think it’s some kind of dystopia, and therefore to be shunned. For example, an old American friend of mine got into conspiracy theories shortly before his death, and was adamant I NEVER travel the Germany again. I travel there regularly and I can personally attest I’ve never felt uncomfortable for a second. But then again, I don’t get scared when I hear ten different languages in a room. That’s Europe.
Detroit hung on the NIH to the point of bankrupting two major car makers and nearly doing so with the third. Now Ford a GM share transmissions, like Toyota and Nissan have been doing forever. Because development costs are spread more widely, we all benefit.
I haven’t seem a Capri in at least 2 decades, I think there was one parked on my college campus back in the 80s…when the lots were filled with cheap, hand-me-down ’70s Detroit iron like Torinos, F-100s, Impalas, Malibus and so on. The 1st gen Capri vanished quickly, the badge and butt-engineered Fox body ones were rare and disappeared just as soon.
I’ve seen two since moving back to California four and a half years ago. And it’s been more than a year since I saw the last one. Still, that’s a better record than for the Fox-body Capri. It’s been at least five years, maybe more—and that was in Arizona.
CC effect: saw a Mk I Capri on the road just last week; looked in beautiful condition.
(Long Sigh)
ANOTHER car that I lusted after when new, couldn’t afford to buy it new, couldn’t find a decent V6/4 speed model later on when I could afford to buy one.
The “Real World” can be a harsh mistress.
My mother bought a pair of these, one for my step father .
I thought they were decent cars, the firestone 500 “maypop’ tires on both failed and needed replacement .
-Nate
Any road tests of this versus the other ‘affordable’ German sports coupe of the time, the Opel Manta?
After the original Cougar, Mercury seemed to lose its way, where the Cougar morphed to a mid-sized car and even a station wagon (drove one of them when I worked for Hertz probably in 1978). The original Capri kind of took over as a “mini” version of the Cougar, I remember them being red hot when I started college in the mid 70’s, but like the Opel Manta, they didn’t seem to stick around long, of course by ’79 Capri was the Mercury version of the Fox Mustang and the German version was gone. But Mercury seemed to tinker with especially sporty models quite a lot, when they had their brief offering of Merkur (maybe I wasn’t alone in thinking that name was awfully similar to Mercury?) and even the Australian built 2 seat convertible around 1991 or so…none of them stuck around long, but the names seemed to be recycled on quite different (but still sporty) models.
I’ve never driven a Capri, but have to do by proxy of my brother-in-law, who has easily owned 10x the number of cars as I (which isn’t saying much, I’ve only owned 5 cars in 50 years of driving). He briefly owned an Opel Manta, and a Fox Capri…I guess in 1982 Cougar was still mid-sized, so the Fox Capri would otherwise probably have been called a Cougar rather than a Capri (since Mercury seemed to value the Cougar name a bit more than Capri, at least it seemed to me).
Kind of funny timing, it seems to me, though I know Capri was a sporty model, but 1974 was right after the first gas shortage in the US…wonder why they didn’t stick with the 4 cylinder, maybe a turbo? Of course the 260Z was 6 cylinder, but still many smaller sporty cars still had 4 cylinders even back then….probably 6 cylinder was in works before the gas shortage, and of course this was peak time for detuned engines so power required more cubic inches (at least without turbo which wasn’t common in small inexpensive cars for awhile yet).
My dad and I bought a 74 Capri when I was going to college. 4cyl, automatic and nothing more. I spent many afternoons behind the wheel trying to figure out all the unique things about the car. IE. Where’s the horn button? What’s this extra button on the floorboard? What is this flexible “thing” by the passenger side window? I never really got to enjoy the car before giving it up to my sister, who was learning how to drive. My brother now has it. We swapped out the automatic with a 4 speed. On Memorial Day 1977, I was driving by a Datsun dealership and saw a 73’Capri, 2.6L, 4 spd, with air conditioning. I ended up driving it home. I really liked this car. One evening I was getting on I-16 between Savannah and Macon GA when a 260Z passes me. I kept up with it until 90mph. That’s when the front end started to lift. I stopped that with a front spoiler. I kept the Capri for 10 years and regretted selling it. It was a solid car. I serviced it myself and never had a problem with it. I like the Capri so much that I purchased a 73, 2.6L, 4 spd (no air this time) about two years ago and plan on restoring it. Oh, did I tell you my brother STILL has the 74 model? Ford is talking about bringing back the Capri name, unfortunately it won’t be for a 2-door coupe.