Jalopnik
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junkyard find
1976 Capri II Wants You To Know It's Not A Mercury, Even As It Awaits Crushing
While Lincoln-Mercury dealers sold the European-made Ford Capri in North America, the cars themselves had no marque. Just to make things more confusing, Ford branded the later Fox Mustang-clone and Mazda 323-based Capris with Mercury emblems. Anyway, none of that matters for this car, which I spotted in an East Bay wrecking yard last weekend, because it has a date with the cold jaws that will get it ready for another spin of the steel-reincarnation wheel.
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el camino
Innovative Swede Builds Tuff Willys Caprichero!
JanTheMan has found this 1980 Ford Capri that's been upgraded to full-on "Tuff Willys" status. We especially like the beautifully crafted custom fender flares, and the cowcatcher in front is a definite keeper. Stock up a few cases of akvavit to keep in the bed and you'll be ready to hoon your way through that long Scandinavian winter in style. If you don't speak Swedish, you can try the Google Language Tools version, which seems to indicate that a "well known rally driver" was involved in the construction of this fine customized motor vehicle. [Blocket.se] -
classic ad watch
Drive Phoenix To LA Very Slowly In a 1974 Mercury, Get Crap Mileage!
How is it possible that a car weighing just over 2,200 pounds and equipped with a 2-liter engine can drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles at the maddeningly geriatric speed of 50 miles per hour and manage only a pathetic 32.4 miles per gallon? Yes, that's the best the '74 Capri could do! We're thinking it was the weight of several tons of Malaise pushing down hard on the car during the trip (not to mention the restrictive first-gen catalytic converters and miserable engine compression ratios of the era). The six-cylinder Comet made the same trip and grunted out an Saudi-oil-baron-pleasing 26.6 MPG, so we shudder to imagine the sort of single-digit mileage a 460-equipped Country Squire would have achieved. -
found on ebay
Berwyn Car Spindle Up For Sale!
We were all quite sad when we learned that the Cermak Plaza Shopping Center overlords had decided to remove the legendary Berwyn Car Spindle from their property. But now the Berwyn Spindle may be relocated... to your front yard! Yes, it's up for sale on eBay, with a starting bid of $50,000 (and a shipping cost of double that, so you'll probably elect to go pick it up yourself. Make the jump for some video of the Spindle. [eBay] More » -
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found on craigslist
Ideal Jalopnik Official Staff Car Located
The Gawker Overlords have so far refused to buy us an Official Jalopnik Vehicle, no matter how much we've tried to convince them that something like a Citröen SM or Tatra 603 would give us such unassailable credibility that our competitors would simply fold their tents and go home. Now we've found what may be the perfect car for the NorCal Jalopnik office (which, conveniently enough, has just one employee): More » -
what to drive in 75
What To Drive In '75: Manta or Capri?
In our last What To Drive In '75 episode, we saw the 1975 Ford Maverick Grabber beat the 1975 Oleg Cassini AMC Matador in the poll. Today we're going for an all-import matchup, though it's a classic GM-versus-Ford contest as well. The Opel Manta and Ford Capri were bitter sales rivals across the Atlantic, and both had sufficient sales in North America that they were not unfamiliar on our shores. So imagine it's 1975 and you need to buy a shiny new fuel-efficient-yet-sporty machine to drive a long distance to the Led Zep show (hey, it's the Physical Graffiti tour- you need the right ride if you want to groove properly on that 3-hour version of "Kashmir" later on!) So, what's it gonna be?
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choose your eternity
Project Car Hell: Firebird or Capri?
We had another close one yesterday, with the '41 Ford eking out a narrow victory over the '51 Merc in the Woodless Woody competition. Since everyone is probably too busy trying to use waterlogged particleboard to "restore" their Woodies, we should probably show some mercy and give you a couple of easy cars to choose from today. However, Hell doesn't work that way. Hell is when you're in over your head on an impossible project and you immediately go out and get another one! So today we're going with a couple of Early Malaise Era classics that need just a bit of TLC...
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down on the street
1972 Capri, with Bonus DOTS Format Poll
OK, Capri experts, feel free to bring up the debate about whether the Ford Capri as sold in the USA was really a Mercury or not; it was sold through Mercury dealers, but had no Mercury identifiers on the car. Also feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about the year of this one; I'm pretty sure the '73 had smaller side "vents" and the '71 had a smaller front bumper (and no available V6), but I admit I'm no Capri expert.
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classic ad watch
Ease On Down The Road In An '80 Mercury Capri!
We can look at the 1980 Capri in two different ways. Was it yet another underpowered fake-sporty Detroit rattletrap, or the raw material for countless Fox Ford freaks who would stuff all manner of insane engines into its lightweight chassis? The Fox is the gearhead's friend, so we can't look at this car the way we'd look at, say, a Lynx or Monarch. In any case, this ad scores very high on the Malaise Era Cheepnis-O-Meter.
