Was Capri a model or a make? The car itself was gorgeously self-evident, a lively and attractive coupe that could be had on a budget. Capri burst on the scene at the start of the 1970s. It was a collaborate effort by designers of the most globally diverse of all car companies, Ford. Sport sedan aficionados throughout Europe had no question that this racy looking car wore the Blue Oval proudly on its bonnet. It was the Ford Capri, and they loved it. But Capri’s many fans in America were less clear about what banner it drove for. Was it a Ford? Ford dealers in the States already had a sporty coupe to sell. They called it the Mustang…and rumor had it, it was doing pretty well. So Capri was offered through the Lincoln-Mercury division. But was it a Mercury? No Mercury ever handled like a this. Things didn’t get much clearer over its two+ decades in America. Capri took different forms, spanning four generations and as many continents. It wasn’t really a Ford or a Mercury. We just call it Capri - the subject of our next Makes that Didn’t Make It.

Fords from Europe

Ford Motor Company began importing English Fords to America soon after the end of WWII, and for the first decade or so they didn’t import very many. Their presence in American showrooms was more a result of pressure applied by the British government to fulfill its “Export or Die” policy, rather than on any actual demand for these well-designed but poorly made small cars.

Things changed abruptly in 1958. In the midst of the Edsel debacle, Ford Motor Company reorganized its brand structure. Lincoln-Mercury Division, seller of the company’s larger more prestigious offerings, was given the task of also selling European Fords. This turned out quite well for dealers having to ride out a tough and lingering recession with otherwise big expensive cars. Lincoln-Mercury sold nearly 100,000 English Consuls, Zephyrs and Zodiacs over the next couple of years. But 1960 would see the homegrown Ford Falcon and Mercury Comet compacts debut, and sales of Fords from across the pond petered out.

That was too bad, because at about the same time Ford of Britain was introducing a nifty little coupe called the Consul Capri. The high volume Consul sedan’s ungainly backwards canted roof had been ditched in favor of a sleek fastback and a pair of tail fins. It looked a lot like a 5/8 scale American Ford Galaxy. The Consul Capri was a nice little car, but only lasted a couple of years. The Consul was replaced by a more modern sedan called the Corsair. An updated Capri version was not commissioned.

The Sexy European

Back in America, the 1964 Ford Mustang was probably the most successful and lucrative new model in the history of the automobile. What made the Mustang a hit was its aggressively sporty shape. It was just what early members of the Baby Boomer generation now coming of age craved. The reason Mustang was so profitable was that beneath that sexy body was the ubiquitous and cheap underpinnings of the Ford Falcon compact sedan, a car so loved by gramps and grammas everywhere. With a platform already in place and paid for, Ford spent a relative pittance developing the Mustang. Then they sold millions of them. It wasn’t long before Ford’s European marketers asked the question, if the Yanks can do it, why not us?

The 1969 Capri was one of the first collaborations between Ford’s newly merged British and German operations. The two groups did not always see eye to eye, but they did agree to apply the Mustang formula for their new coupe. Take a compact sedan - in this case the Ford Cortina Mk III - push the cockpit back on the frame, dress it in a sleek sculptured coupe suit. The result was a ground breaking new model for a fraction of the cost of an all-new car.

Capri’s Anglo-Germanic heritage made it an unlikely masterpiece. Less than a generation removed from being enemies on the battlefield, the friction that must have existed between the Capri’s collaborators could potentially have been explosive. But in this car the tension is channeled artfully. With German precision and British purity, the Capri’s taunt lines coil, ready to explode forward. Its every proportion was perfect, with nary a detail out of place. Capri was a stunner. In January 1969 it was unveiled at the Brussels Int’l Auto Show - fittingly, about half-way between London and Cologne. Capri became an instant hit across Europe.

Capri Leaps the Pond

Back in America, as the 1960s became the 70s, cars were getting steadily bigger and fatter. When it was introduced in 1964, the Ford Mustang weighed just 2500lbs. By 1971, it would top 3000lbs. The waistline of the Mercury Cougar, an elegant coupe spawned by the Mustang, had similarly bulked up, now hitting 3400lbs. With these two pony cars letting themselves go, a niche was opened up for a new lightweight sporty coupe. The European Capri fit it to a tee. And the little coupe also fit nicely in Ford Motor Company’s strategy of differentiating Lincoln-Mercury products from the lower priced, higher volume Fords. Capri would join Cougar in bracketing the Mustang in both image and price, just like Cougar and the new Lincoln Continental Mark III bracketed the Ford Thunderbird.

In European markets, Ford supplied Capris from factories at Halewood in the UK and Cologne in West Germany. Despite a less favorable exchange rate for the deutschmark, in these pre-euro days, and a two-decade tradition of English Fords in America, Halewood’s terrible labor relations and intolerable build quality meant that when U.S. sales commenced in April 1970, all Capris bound there would be sourced from Germany.

When it arrived, Capri was widely praised here for its racy styling and crisp handling, its upscale interior and rock bottom price. Everything but its performance. The culprit was the English-built 1.6L overhead-valve “Kent” engine, a crude mill that had been powering European Fords for the past two decades. The rough, underpowered Kent was poorly suited for American driving, totally out of synch with Capri’s sexy sophisticated look. But even with the outdated motor, Mercury managed to sell 15,000 Capris in its abbreviated first year.

The Capri’s single wart was surgically removed in 1971. The Kent engine was replaced with a larger, smoother OHC 2.0L power plant. The new engine produced more power (100hp vs 75), giving it much better performance. And with the job of moving a 2200lb car now spread out among more horses, the 2-litre actually delivered better fuel economy. Sales tripled to 53,000. They rose to 80,000 in 1972, when the captive import received an optional German-made V6 engine. With this set up, Capri could embarrass any muscle car out there when the road got twisty. For 1973, Mercury sold 113,000 Capri’s, placing it second only to the VW Beetle that year for popularity among import models in America.

Federal environmental and safety mandates began to bite in 1974. As a result, Capri’s V6 engine grew larger, but less powerful. The massive plastic bumpers added weight, while sapping grace.

A redesigned Capri II arrived in late 1975. It was more refined than the original, and despite the blocky federally mandated bumpers, was still quite pretty. Unfortunately, the German currency was on the accent in the mid-seventies. The Capri II became pricy in comparison with new coupes from Japan like the Toyota Celica. The Capri II lasted only two model years in America.

Despite being felled in the States by regulations and economics, the Capri remained popular in Europe. It was redesigned in 1979, now known as the Capri Mk III. But in the early 1980s, sales began to wane. The Capri was replaced on the Continent by the modern and aerodynamic Ford Sierra XR4. The Brits, however, love automotive oddities (Do they still make Bristols?) The Capri had something of a cult following among a small segment of the Queen’s subjects, and was able to remain on sale there through 1988.

The Tubby American 

In America, after a 1-year hiatus to clear out unsold inventory of 1977 cars, Capri was back for 1979. This was the first Capri to actually wear a Mercury badge. It was built in Michigan now, alongside a new Mustang with which the it shared Ford’s “Fox” platform. Sadly, the Ford/Mercury comparison did not favor the latter. While the new Mustang was a major improvement over the dumpy Pinto-based Mustang II, the new Capri succeeded a much better car.

The distribution of looks didn’t help Capri either. Badge engineering had descended on the Ford Motor Company during the recession-wracked 1970s. That meant the new Capri differed from its paternal twin only by a blockier (called “formal”) grill up front, and later a heavy bulbous glass hatch in back. Initial year sales were good, nearly matching the 1973 model. But they quickly withered. The Capri was discontinued after 1986.

The Ugly Aussie

In the auto industry, good names die hard. And so a new decade brought a brand new Capri, this one possessing a brand new passport. In a seemingly endless pursuit of the setting sun, the source for Capri’s production continued westward, from Europe, to North America, and now on to the Antipodes. After a stopover in Japan to collect the underpinnings of the Mazda 323, the 4th generation Capri was now assembled outside of Melbourne, Australia.

The journey across the Pacific must have been a tumultuous one, for when the Capri arrived in Ozzie it had not only lost its top and back seat, but flipped around its driveline. The Capri was now a 2-seat roadster with front wheel drive. What hadn’t changed on its continuing western migration, was the heavy toll each stop took on Capri’s once terrific looks. This one looked as convoluted as its bloodline might suggest.

At least the Capri from Down Under looked good on the stat sheet. It could be ordered with a 1.6-litre turbocharged engine that put out a healthy (for the time) 132hp and turned 0-60 times of under 9 seconds. But it was crude and unrefined, especially when compared to its distant cousin and most direct competitor, the sensational Mazda Miata. By 1994, the Capri was gone for good.

The final iterations of Capri were not awful cars, but they weren’t good ones either. It isn’t hard to expunge them from our memories. Why not instead let our minds be unsullied, as we remember those beautiful Capris of the 1970s, those lithe rolling sculptures. They weren’t Fords, nor were they Mercurys. The Capri stood apart.

Copyright@2018  by Mal Pearson (revised 2022)