If you ever needed proof that the Mercury marque suffered from puzzling, left-handed FoMoCo branding strategies over the years, the first-gen Capri will serve nicely. Sold by Mercury dealers in North America, but not as a Mercury... what the hell?
Just to confuse things further, a Mercury-badged Fox Mustang was sold as a "Mercury Capri" during the early years of the Fox; later on, you could buy a Mazda-323-based Mercury Capri convertible. At least this Ford Capri doesn't have some sort of incomprehensible European V6 under the hood. Pure Pinto power for this '77 Capri II!
You Bay Area residents older than, say, 30 years old should remember the yellow-and-black-diamond KOME stickers that adorned every Judas Priest-crankin', Centerline-havin', Thai-stick-reekin' vehicle with any pretension of donuts-in-the-7/11-parking-lot hoonage potential from Santa Cruz to Santa Rosa. You'd hear every Sabbath song ever recorded on KOME, not to mention Motörhead, Blue Cheer, and the occasional Sex Pistols back in its heyday of the early 1980s, and this sticker adorning your car (each of mine had several) told Johnny Law that he'd probably find something... interesting if he searched your ride.
Check out that Über-70s Brown™ interior! All this Capri goodness reminds me of the rap, circa 1983, that a high-school buddy (who drove a hot-rodded '76 Buick Skyhawk, of all things) penned in honor of the "Mercury" Capri. Be sure to get someone to do some bad beatboxing when you read it out loud.
Drivin' down the street in my Mercury,
It's a bright yellow '76 Capri.
Anti-sway bars on the front and rear,
And a Playboy bunny hangin' from the mirror.
Parts from this car will live on in the Mad Maxeltov 24 Hours of LeMons car, thanks to a well-timed Half Off Sale at this self-service junkyard. Team Mad Maxeltov already owns about 8 Capri parts cars (shockingly, you can buy dead Capris for about 50 bucks), but you can never have too many parts!