mk2 capri
September 2019 25hen it launched in 1974, the Capri II
was very much the sensible Capri.
Still ‘The car you always promised
yourself ’, sure, but far easier to justify to a
questioning spouse or concerned bank manager
thanks to the fact that it had a larger cabin and a
shorter bonnet, you could buy it with a dinky
little 1.3-litre engine, and it had a sensible
hatchback rather than a fi ddly bootlid. That
promise you’d made to yourself had become a
more achievable dream.
However, the Capri II wasn’t all about being
sensible. After all, if you wanted spacious
practicality and favourable fuel economy, you’d
buy a lesser-engined Cortina, wouldn’t you? So
the genius of Ford’s marketing here was to apply
the spec levels of the everyday models — L, GL,
Ghia and so on — to the rakish coupé, while at
the same time retaining the halo effect of having
a brawny sports variant at the top of the range.
And the further genius of the second-gen Capri,
the genius-squared if you will, was that you
could option the thudding 3-litre Essex V6 in
two distinct guises. If you were the type of
person who wore their shirt unbuttoned to the
midriff to expose a jangling collection of
shimmering medallions, you bought the 3.0S,
complete with fi shnet Recaros and aggressive
side-stripes. If, however, you wished to exude
more of a clubman vibe and wanted people to
think your hobbies included taking pot-shots at
grouse and mooching around wine cellars, you
opted for the Ghia: its vinyl roof and swanky
innards spoke of Italianate chic, but it was every
bit as much of a hooligan as its boy-racer sibling.Mixed up
But what happens if you want to fuse the two?
To take the class and fi nesse of the Ghia, and
imbue it with a frisson of the aggression of the S,W
and create a sort of Ghia S effect? That’s what
Dave Smith has achieved here with this searingly
citrus-hued 3-litre, and the essence of it lies in
repainting the 1974 in Signal Orange over its
original Stardust Silver. The tale, however, is
about far more than merely a respray. This car
represents a fulfi lment of a long-held dream for
Dave — it was, indeed, the car he’d always
promised himself — and once he got started on
the project, the rabbit-hole turned out to be
rather deep.
“I’d had a couple of Capris back in the ’80s,”
he recalls. “I’d always wanted a 3-litre, but
couldn’t afford the insurance at the time. I’ve
mostly had Fords over the years and I’ve never
been one to keep them standard...”
This particular car, however, did much to alter
his perceptions. OK, he’s radically altered its
aesthetic impact by painting it bright orange, as
well as making a few other minor tweaks, but this