One afternoon, in late summer 1999, I was nonchalantly heaving a large suitcase into the trunk of my car, in a parking lot at London’s Heathrow airport.
“Is this your car? It’s so cool!” she said in her deep Appalachian accent.
A fountain of bright red hair. Cheekbones like geometry and (green) eyes like sin. I somehow know and yet cannot know that in just over a year later I will marry this woman in a small chapel in North Carolina. As I turn the key and the 2.8 injection V6 rumbles loudly into life through the barest of legally required mufflers, the opening riff to L’il Devil by The Cult erupts from the stereo.
Livin’ in a shack in a one-horse town
Trying to get to heaven ‘fore the sun goin’ down
I think my life peaked right there, to be honest.
I loved that car – a 1985 Regency Red Ford Capri 2.8 injection Special. The car I always promised myself. A while later it was stolen from outside my house (another story in itself), and I’ve long yearned for another. Because the Capri 2.8 injection is probably my absolute favorite car. Ever. As a car mad eight-year-old I was transfixed when I saw the television advert – lightning striking the rear of the car to leave you in no doubt how fast it was. And for 1981, when the mighty 2.8 injection was introduced, they were bloody quick cars – 160bhp, 0-60 in less than eight seconds and a top speed of 130mph. It was a few months before I saw one on the road, but I recall it vividly – parked on the Barking Road, outside Rathbone Market near our house. Jet black, wide 13” Wolfrace Sonic alloy wheels smeared in Goodyear low profiles, twin exhausts, subtle red pinstriping and a black and white tartan interior.
It was by far the coolest fucking thing I had ever seen. A vision of speed and style in a grubby, hardscrabble part of the world. I was completely smitten. So decades later why didn’t I buy another one instead of making a slightly questionable Italian decision? Good question, and one I reflect on regularly. I did consider it, but classic Fast Ford prices have been burdened by a massive scene tax for a while now, and as much as I love them a good one is hard to justify at over thirty grand.
Names Are For Tombstones, Baby
The last Capri was built on 19th December 1986 – after a production run of nearly twenty years and two million cars, but the truth is it had been living on borrowed time for a while. A two-door coupe with ancient live axle undercarriage kept on life support by an adoring British public as the everyman sporting car market moved on to hot hatchbacks. By then the Carpi did have something of an image problem–it was basically an Essex Camaro.
But now, after a 38-year gap, Ford have launched a new one. Well, a new something, because my friends it is categorically fucking not a Capri. It’s an insult. An abomination that should never have been born. The paint-drinking thundercock who came up with this thing should be fired from a trebuchet off the end of Southend pier on a Saturday night in full view of every single member of the Capri Club. I’ll sell the tickets. Everyone else involved with the design, conception, and execution of this unholy bastard should be rounded up, strapped into a chair and forced to watch reruns of The Professionals with their eyes pinned open like Alex in A Clockwork Orange. And then kicked by a donkey in the privates. Repeatedly. Because if we’re just slapping heritage names on any old shit willy-nilly, then what in bloody hell are we even doing?
Now you might think I’m being saltier than usual and taking this whole new Capri thing very personally, and you’re goddamn right I am. No doubt, somewhere over in darkest Dunton, some shiny suited worm eater from the marketing department with a tie knot bigger than his head, is showing his boss all the rage engagement statistics and saying see, I told you calling it Capri would work. It’s a free marketing buy. Well done, double Proseccos all ’round. And in hate-typing this piece, I’m contributing to that digital outrage. Well, given my love for the original, if I didn’t let everyone know exactly how I felt in a forthright manner I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. And I’m not the only one who feels this way. The original press release on the Ford UK Facebook page was deleted after 300 negative comments, and I waded through over 25 pages of mostly angry comments on Pistonheads (the UK’s main car forum) so you don’t have to. So you don’t have to take my word for it – the UK enthusiast community is pissed.
They Chose Capri Violence Over Diplomacy
Why did Ford of Europe choose Capri violence over diplomacy? What possessed the product planning department, presumably all suffering a communal fit of insanity, to think that this could in any way, in any shape, on any fucking planet, possibly be a good idea? I’ve already mentioned the free buzz generated by the digital outrage but that alone cannot explain the temptation to step onto a potential PR landmine of galactic proportions. The truth is Ford have already got their eye in with this sort of bullshit, so it probably seemed worth the risk.
The Mustang Mach E cultivated similar outrage in the US by hammering the skin of a Mustang onto a five-door electric SUV. And in Europe, Ford replaced the beloved Fiesta hatchback with the Puma, another name from the slightly more recent history books. But the difference is, in the case of the Mach E it wasn’t a replacement – so all those built tough Ford fans with Mustang underpants could still buy the genuine article. They were never going to lose customers. With the Puma, the pert Ian Callum original, with its singing Yamaha engine and Steve McQueen television adverts never had anything like the same level of cultural cachet as the Capri. And by all accounts (I’ve not driven one, and probably never will if Ford UK PR read this) it’s a great little family crossover. [Ed note: Wait, I drove it, it was awesome! – MH]
Before I help myself to another line of rage cocaine, let’s put all that to one side for a moment. An argument can be made that people don’t buy low-slung two-door coupes anymore. Ignoring for a second the slightly inconvenient fact that the normal Mustang is the best-selling sports coupe across Europe, we know customers buy crossovers and, like it or not, the coupe crossover is now an established category in the automotive market. So, you might not blame Ford of Europe for wanting to introduce one. Except they already sell the Mustang Mach E here, so what the actual fuck? Another argument I’ve heard made is that legacy OEMs are shitting their collective knickers about the imminent invasion of cheap, tech-heavy, well-built EVs from China. I’m still on the fence about this assumption – maybe in softer, less brand-sensitive markets it will happen – but European countries tend to be incredibly loyal to their domestic manufacturers, and the UK in particular, as I’ve said before is a very, very snobbish and fashionable market when it comes to cars. So the theory goes all legacy OEMs have to stem this tide are tariffs and something no Chinese brand has – heritage. A back catalog of greatest hits they can dust off and rerelease, to push nostalgia buttons and differentiate themselves in the eyes of consumers. The more charitable among you then might be thinking in that case, resurrecting the Capri name on a coupe crossover sort of makes sense. Apart from the fact the original was an aspirational, affordable two-door coupe for the working man (or woman), and the new one is a raised ride height four-door that starts at forty eight fucking thousand pounds, there’s another teensy weensy issue with it.
It’s absolutely fucking gopping.
The Design Is Just Plain Bad
It’s been compared to a Polestar 2: in a hilarious bit of corporate shade Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath compared the two cars in an Instagram story that now appears to be deleted. But the truth is the Polestar is a great looking car with much better proportions, and strong sense of its own minimalist identity: a Volvo for people who live in concrete houses with no furniture.
Let’s look at the two cars side by side. The Capri has a fractionally longer wheelbase at 109” (2765mm) compared to the Polestar’s 108” (2735mm) but because the Capri at 64” (1626mm) high is nearly six whole inches taller, everything else, including the cowl and the beltline has to pulled up to compensate, making the whole thing look too high. And talking of the cowl, look at where the base of the windscreen is on both cars. The Capri’s is very fractionally further forward, and it has slightly less curve to the windshield, which brings the A-pillar and the leading shut line of the front door closer to the front wheel. There’s a tiny amount more dash-to-axle ratio on the Polestar, and it makes all the difference, making the wheelbase of the Polestar appear longer, even though it is in fact an inch shorter.
Given the Capri is supposed to be a coupe, why didn’t Ford make more effort to make it lower like the Polestar? Clearly stuffing the floor with cells in the usual EV fashion isn’t the driver of this inflated dimension because guess where the batteries are in the Polestar. No. The problem is the Volkswagen MEB platform the Capri is built on.
All the Volkswagen ID electric vehicles, with the exception of the ID Buzz because it’s a van, suffer from the same excess of verticality. But what makes it worse in the case of the Capri is the fact it is essentially the new electric Explorer in sneakers. They have identical interiors and even share the exact same doors. Ford is making a big deal about the curved shape on the rear of the Daylight Opening, and how it references the classic Capri rear window shape, but it’s totally wrong. It doesn’t have enough curve and the apex is in the wrong place because the shape of it is driven by having to use the same glazing and door frames as the Explorer. No wonder there was no scope to take any height out of it. They totally phoned it in. Here, see for yourself:
Don’t Leave Me This Way
Why fart out another anonymous piece of bloated EV shovelware onto the crowded crossover market? It’s possible there’s an excess of line capacity to be used, but the Explorer isn’t available yet, so that reasoning seems unlikely. Have Ford and VW misread the market so much that they are taking the blunderbuss approach, spinning as many models off of MEB as possible with the barest minimum of extra investment, hoping a beloved name will pick up the slack and make one of them a hit? Fuck my life. Names mean something.
Heritage for car companies (or any company really) mean something – it defines who you are, what you stand for and gives your products meaning. They provide an emotional anchor to your brand in the eyes of customers and loyalists. If they become just a label, they lose all of that goodwill and connection. They shouldn’t be squandered by cynical marketing departments. But it doesn’t have to be like this. You know how I know? The Capri was released last week at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. You know what else was shown at the same event? A brand new version of another fondly remembered low-slung two-door coupe from the eighties with a glittering heritage – the Honda Prelude. If Ford had any sense of treating their storied history in the same way that’s how they would have approached a new Capri. If only they had a EuroNCAP-compliant, RWD two-door platform they could adapt to build such a car…
In the meantime, I’m not getting (and don’t want) the wife back but I can replace my old red 2.8 injection. With a black one this time, obviously. Anyone want to buy a Ferrari?
Unless otherwise stated, all images courtesy of Ford Media and The Ford Heritage Vault.
My first car was a Ford Capri with the 2.8 that I inherited from an uncle that was moving overseas. I was 19 and pretty clueless about cars. The Capri did give me my first lesson in replacing a brake master cylinder. I had some good times in that car. Weirdly enough, my uncle had ordered the car without any radio, so I would bring a blaster with me (this was in the 80’s).
Once you start monetizing your legacy rather than growing or polishing it, it’s already gone.
I don’t mind that it’s a Capri SUV, I mind that it has no swagger, at all. If you’re going to call it a Capri it needs to have presence like the Cupra Formentor for example. It has none of that, no presence, the TV adverts keep the camera moving so you can’t see how bland it is. It reminds me of the Allegro Vanden Plas, of all things; just enough pretence to fool a small minority of buyers who are determined to believe the marketing, no matter what.
Cracking article made awesome with The Cult lyrics even though I’m more a Manta Man myself (sorry!)
You must live north of Watford.
Yes I’m a bit further up the M1 than that – I’m from Sheffield
Not spent any time there but I suspect it’s somewhere I would like very much.
It seems weird to me that brands who should value the concept of brand loyalty from customers don’t understand that respecting that brand’s history is a component of retaining that loyalty. I read the other comments and was reminded of similar, though maybe not quite as egregious, examples from other companies. You’d think the lesson would be learned by now.
I think that the worst part of this has been the emphasis on heratige in the marketing. If they’d just released it as a new coupe-crossover thing called the Capri, in a similar manner to how they launched the Puma, I don’t think it’d be as offensive.. But to release it to a big fanfare of “Bringing back the Legend”, and highlighting the history of the nameplate to then put it on …this, is just an insult to anyone with fond memories of the origonal Capri, IE anyone they’re trying to target with this marketing strategy.
As a resident of the Colonies, I feel fortunate that I’ll never have to see this abomination on the roads (but I do see some ID.4s about, those are bad enough). If I had to pick, however, I’d take the EV Explorer, but both models make the Mach E look beautiful by comparison.
How cool would the new Capri have been if they weren’t hampered by the VW chassis? Oh wait, it never would’ve been built.
Yes. Names mean something. Heritage means something. Fuck the e-Mustang and fuck the new “Capri”. Thanks for putting our rage into well-chosen word, Adrian.
Incensed, word smithing Adrian is the best Adrian. Thank you for being you, sir.
I’m fucking charming really.
PREACH. I hate this trend of violating old nameplates so much.
And that is NOT a Capri. I actually hope it got booed at the reveal for missing the mark so hard.
No kidding. This IS a Chevy Blazer not that thing on sale today. https://static1.topspeedimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1976-chevrolet-k5-blazer-bring-a-trailer.jpg
AMEN
I was sick so didn’t make Goodwood, but apparently the reception when it went up the hill was not good.
Good. Boo it early, boo it often, and pump those boos straight into my brains until Ford hires a reasonable naming person.
Spot on.
You know what’s even sadder? (not arguing with your critique here) The new one is one of the less ugly CUVs on offer these days. Think about it. We are in a sea of derivative crap. I the defence of this poor thing, I’m not seeing a giant black plastic fake honeycomb grill, stupid floating roof or black glass roof, minimally functional (maybe) air curtain scoops (who drives fast enough all the time for that shit to matter?). I’d also say it looks a hell of a lot better than that cartoon MACH-E.
I thought for a second I could do a positive take, but then I had to consider that awful VW interior. How did the script get so badly lost?
I saw a 00s SsangYong Rodius the other day and thought, you know it’s not that ugly. That’s how bad things have got.
In England maybe, but according to Wiki, Ford Australia was building Ford Capris from 89 to 94.
No argument tho, that CUV is (yet another) insult to the Capri name.
LewinLand doesn’t count.
Exactly. Those weren’t Capris they were Jeeps.
I loved the rant but it’s sad what they’ve done. I just fell in love with those blue plaid seats.
That’s the exact interior I want if I get one. Sadly it’s only on the earlier, non-Specials, so no LSD and only a four speed box (but the four speeds are quicker and the shift quality is much better).
You, sir, have put into writing my exact feelings on GM slapping Pontiac and LeMans badges on a fugly mess of a Daewoo in the pre-Internet days. Just because some MBA called it that did not make it a Pontiac nor a LeMans. When I win the PowerBall my goal is to round up any identifiable remaining examples, running or not, and sent them to the smelter. Not just shredded or crushed – they need to be erased. They make me angrier than 1997-2003 Ford truck taillights. Not a single badge shall remain.
I admire that level of pettiness.
I had a similar experience with a woman and a Chrysler TC by Maserati and by golly if Stellantis ever turns one of those into an EV, I’ll rant until the cows come home. Then I’ll buy one.
By the way, I own a Mustang Mach-E. Beautiful car and fantastic driver.
I’m not blown away by the new Capri, but it’s not terribly ugly and has excellent range. I suppose if I had a great experience with the original craptastic Capri that would result in at least five minutes of umbrage. It is amazing to read the vitriol from so many Brits who are tying their three pointed hats in a knot (though to be fair, everyone wore a three pointer back in the day) over such a mediocre old car.
It wasn’t totally mediocre, and the 2.8i was genuinely a good car and well received. I have nothing against the Mach E, because you can still buy a normal Mustang, and it’s not ugly by any means.
Nothing wrong with a good rant if it’s done properly and comes from deep within. Well done sir. A fresh contrast to the lukewarm snark we see on so many websites.
I’m basically unemployable anywhere else.
Have you tried working for an airline? I understand they are always looking for plain old ornery folks.
I see you’ve been through the Philly airport . . .
Matchbox has a Capri die-cast, but I felt it was a little too chunky and wasn’t a great execution. I had it with a trailer and a boat.
I remember that one!
Good. Use your aggressive feelings boy! Let the hate flow through you!
I’m here for the Mach-E hate, and the poor Maverick (though I covet that truck).
A Dodge fan I know had a similar meltdown over the new Hornet.
Adrian, your rant was longer, contained way more (and more varied) insults, and was much more entertaining.
Same point though – the “stolen” name is nothing less than a corporate marketing sin. Hopefully the Capri sells better than the Hornet, because that thing has been a disaster.
If only a handsome and witty car design critic had written about that particular abortion:
https://www.theautopian.com/a-car-designer-explains-why-the-dodge-hornet-is-such-a-lazy-rebadge-of-the-alfa-romeo-tonale/
“Cheekbones like geometry.” You, sir, have the soul of a poet.
“She’s got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin
And she’s sexually enlightened by cosmopolitan and
When she smiles my way
My eyes go out in vain
For her perfect skin”
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
Good authors create; great authors steal.
It is a brilliant line.
also a good song to be playing, in the original Capri..
we had them in S. Africa, always wanted one, definitely aspirational for a Hillman Vogue driver..
Didn’t they have a V8 Capri over there?
Basil Green Motors was the dealer and tuner whut dropped the 302 into the Capri. R4450 at the time, although the rand was at or above parity with the dollar, which means converting at current exchange rates understates the price. There was a lot of money sloshing around Johannesburg with the overall commodity boom and gold seen as a safe haven for investors from inflationary Western economies, especially since the US and Britain didn’t do much in the way of sanctions until the mid-’80s.
Those are very popular private imports to Australia for people to use in tarmac rallies, where a V8 conversion to a local Capri would render the car ineligible, but a Basil Green Capri is OK because they came from the dealer with the V8 in them already.
You just need to work in something from Rattlesnakes, later.
Always a pleasure to read a proper Adrian rage bender, hahaha.
I aim to please.
I have no problem with electrification, in fact, the F150 Lightning was #1 on my list for my next new car purchase at one point.
Then the Mocky came out, and now the Crappy.
I’m a Mustang and Capri enthusiast. I’ve owned 8 Mustangs (3 Mustang IIs, 3 fox-bodies, 2 S197s) and two Capris (’76 and ’77 Mk2s). I still have the ’77 Capri, but the German V6 and 4spd are gone and a 302 and 5spd are in their place. One of these days I’ll finish it, but I’m getting off-topic here. An EV Capri or Mustang would be just fine with me if they were actual Mustangs or Capris. Crossover blobs with 4-doors and the names tacked on as an afterthought? Screw that!
My only two new car purchases have been Fords, a 2010 Mustang GT and a 2014 F150 STX Sport.
The Mocky and Crappy mean there won’t be a third new Ford. I’ll buy from someone else who doesn’t crap all over their own legacies and piss off enthusiasts for no reason.
The F150 Lightning looks fantastic. Electrification done right. There’s one on the UK press fleet, but they’ll never lend it to me after this!
I would buy one just to get a personalized license plate that said “PANTS”.
Laura Petrie approves.
The three cars you show all look equally butt-arse ugly. Waist line too high, not enough glass, way too much sheet metal, the wheels are much too big. All modern vehicles are like that; all ugly. I bet they all have essentially the same pissed-off aggressive look from the front as well, and probably the same fat ungainly arse at the back.
But of course the first thing to note if you talk about the Capri, be it old or new, is that it is pronounced KAH-pree. The stress is on the first syllable.
Here in the states, we pronounced our final, FWD import from Australia version as ca-PREE b/c ‘Merica and we did at the time love our sugar water in futuristic packages.
Not sure about the ’80s Fox body one though.
I was too lazy to grind this axe but I’ll join just a bit. To the Italians, the isle is CAH-pree. To us Americans, the isle, the pants, and the car are all Cuh -PREE. Knowing the Brits’ approach to Italian, I’m guessing in the UK it’s Cah-PREE. Can someone verify? Good time to mention that I love the way British racing commentators pronounce Furrari.
Cuh-pree.
Thank you, Uncle.