DIVIDE & CONQUER
Matt Amos’s 24-valve Capri has been dividing opinions since it first broke cover. And that’s just the way he likes it.
“I WAS GOING TO STICK A V8 IN THERE, BUT THEN THE COSWORTH 24 VALVER CAME UP FOR SALE AND I JUST HAD TO HAVE IT”
The snowball effect is responsible for dictating the direction of a lot of project cars. It might be the case that somebody finds themselves with a set of BTCC seats, or an ex-drag supercharger, or a sequential gearbox from some written-off rally car, and ends up building their car around it — once you start altering parts and plans to make the thing in question fit, the whole project builds its own momentum. And in the case of this shimmering Capri, it’s the brakes that have informed the direction to a significant degree. It’s a controversial touch to bolt a set of 17 inch wheels to a ’69 Capri, but peer through the spokes and you’ll spot that this move is as much about function as form.
Owner Matt Amos has no qualms about dashing the originality of this car, as you could probably guess. Indeed, having known the car for almost all of his life, he’s never really known it to be factory-standard, so it’s only fitting that he carry on the tradition.
Long memory
“I remember the car from my childhood — it used to belong to my father’s best friend, Geoff,” Matt recalls. “He was the second owner, and had plans to compete in rallies in the car, so he stripped out the interior and fitted a roll cage. That’s where the bubble arches came from — they’re Mk1 Escort arches that have been blended into the lines of the car.
“All through my childhood I admired this Capri,” he continues. “Five years ago, Geoff sadly passed away after a long battle with cancer, and by this time the car was in a bit of a sorry state — it was a rolling shell sitting under a tarpaulin in his front garden.” It was at this time that Matt was able to purchase the shell and bring it home, whereupon he began sketching out a plan to breathe new life into the Capri in a manner that would make Geoff proud. “I decided to continue down the modified path,” he grins. “And the one key element that was decided early on was the colour — Antigua Blue was Geoff’s favourite, so it was only fitting that it would be painted that colour in his memory.”
Matt’s own history with cars stood him in good stead for taking on this project, as the nature of being a lifelong petrolhead meant that he’d pretty much always had a project on the go. But this, he readily admits, was the car that saw him taking things up a level. With no formal training in such matters, his skillset was entirely self-taught, so there was to be much trial-anderror. Still, it wouldn’t be any fun if it was easy, would it?
“Faced with a blank canvas, I set about stripping the whole thing back to see what was what,” he recalls. “The bodywork was beyond my capabilities, so the shell was sent off to a friend at Impact Accident Repairs for a full bare-metal respray. While it was there, a new front valance was also constructed from sheet metal using old-school panel-beating techniques.” Impressively — particularly given that it had been sitting outside under a tarp for so long — the body was largely rust-free, save for the original front valance and the leading edge of the bonnet, so a lot of what you see here is what rolled down the production line as a 1600GT XLR back in 1969. Of course, there were many, many litres of paint involved once the whole thing was straight and true, and with the body gleaming it was time to start figuring out what to shove into it.
More than more
“I began by stripping down the axle and suspension,” he says, “fitting an Atlas from a 2.8i Capri and uprating the suspension all round.” The elephant in the room is the gaping hole in the engine bay, and it makes sense to tailor the final chassis set-up to whatever it is you’ve shoehorned between the inner wings. “I was going to stick a V8 in there,” Matt reasons, “but then the BOA came up and I just had to have it!”
For the uninitiated, this is the 24-valve Cosworth-tweaked V6 as found in the Scorpio, the iconic firm’s magic fingertips teasing the 60 degree, quad-cam vee up to around 195 bhp. Which is a pretty nifty set of numbers to throw into a first-gen Capri, isn’t it? It’s also worth noting that Ford never saw fit to mate the engine to anything other than an auto ’box,
something Matt’s worked to rectify by hanging a strengthened XR4i Type-9 off the back of it.
“The engine did some pretty weird stuff when I first fired it up,” he remembers with a grimace. “The most confusing was that the passenger exhaust was red hot, but the driver’s side was stone cold. After lots of headscratching it was found the timing chain had jumped two teeth due to a faulty tensioner. This was causing the driver’s exhaust to escape on the inlet stroke into the plenum and out the passenger side exhaust.”
These things are sent to try us, and so forth. But it’s all part of the game, the issue was resolved, and Matt’s proud to say he’s got it all shipshape by himself - with the help of some friends when it came to the wiring. And such was the relentless nature of his work ethic that while car was away being painted, he built a new garage to build and keep it in. That’s commitment to the project.
“One of my biggest hurdles was installing the gearbox,” he recalls. “The car was up on ramps one evening, with me manoeuvring the ’box into place flat on my back, little space to move. It finally eased into place around 2 am.” Again, where’s the satisfaction of an easy life?
Big stoppers
So, we return to those brakes. Having thrown a massive percentage increase into the Capri’s power output, Matt was keen that the stopping be as good as the going, so he’s crafted a custom set-up comprising Focus RS Brembo front callipers and ST170 discs, with Cosworth callipers at the rear. These, of course, just won’t fit behind a period 13 inch wheel, which is why those bubble arches are now stuffed with 17 inch Momos. They’re unquestionably the most controversial part of the build. “A lot of people hate them,” Matt smirks, “but they’re necessary.” And so it is that the brake set-up has led to the car’s biggest talking point.
The Momo theme continues in the interior too, providing a thread of consistency; the largely stock XLR guts now sport a set of Momo front seats from an Alfa Romeo GTA, which look surprisingly at home next to the standard rear bench. A smattering of further custom touches followed, from smoothed bumpers (painted in
Audi alloy wheel paint), and what it all really comes down to for Matt is a fusion of two retro staples: first of all, the desire to build the Capri as a tribute to its former owner, and secondly to bolt together the sort of custom Ford he dreamed of back in the ’90s. And while it may get mixed reviews on the show scene, it’s safe to say he’s achieved both.
“It was built by me, and it’s the way I like it,” he shrugs. An attitude, we’re sure, that the erstwhile Geoff would approve of.
“A LOT OF PEOPLE HATE THE 17 INCH WHEELS, BUT THEY WERE NECESSARY TO FIT OVER THE BRAKES”