1969 FORD CAPRI
HERE’S LIVING PROOF THAT YOU DON’T NEED A GIANT V8 TO HAVE AN EYE-CATCHING CAR MEET THE MK I CAPRI.
Three utterly different Fords have carried the name ‘Capri’ but only one carried it off. The 1961 Consul Capri looked better than it went or sold. And Ford Australia’s convertible succeeded neither at home nor in the US market for which it was designed.
The Capri was one of several exciting new European cars to arrive in the late 1960s. Starting with the Fiat 125 in the first quarter of 1968, a number of sports sedans and coupes became available but the Capri was the first coupe in the $3K zone. The Mazda R100 followed in June and the Torana GTR in November.
The locally assembled Capri was released in April 1969 and, blessedly, there was no entry level 1.3 to earn scorn. Both variants were manual 1600s, the $2600 Deluxe with 52kW $2600 and the $2950 GT with 65. All came with a sweet-shifting four-speed manual until automatic transmission hit the options list in 1971. It’s worth noting that some sports models of the era still had column shifts. These included the Fiat 1500 Mark III which was replaced by the 125 in 1968, the redoubtable and unique Renault 16TS and that consummate touring car, the Peugeot 404.
It’s also true that the Capri was more stylish to most eyes, offering the promise of more urge than its four-cylinder engines could deliver.
The Capri was half a decade behind the Mustang making it one of the last cars created under Ford’s international Total Performance philosophy. The sixties really did swing for Ford under Henry II and his marketing dynamo Lee Iacocca who conceived ‘Total Performance’. In 1963 he even persuaded Henry to try to buy Ferrari!
This Mustang-inspired coupe, which debuted at the Brussels Motor Show in January 1969, was an immediate success. We think of the Capri as English but more were made in Germany. They were made in Dagenham and Halewood but also in Cologne, Saarlouis and in Genk (Belgium).
The advertising campaign branded the new Capri ‘The car you always promised yourself’, which turned out to be a selffulfilling prophecy for 1,886,647 customers (half a million of ’em in North America) by the time the last one rolled off the line six days before Christmas 1986.
This slick coupe would have been the Ford Colt (son of Mustang, and ‘Colt’ was its project name) but Mitsubishi owned the rights. ‘Capri’, despite Consul baggage was a good second choice. Following ‘Cortina’ it was Ford of Europe’s second Italian model name.
In its February 1970 edition, Wheels magazine compared the GT variant with the exciting new Torana GTR, which unsurprisingly proved much quicker with a 17.2 standing quarter mile compared with the 1.6-litre Capri’s 18.5. But Ford Australia’s answer to the Torana sixpack challenge was imminent.
On February 24, 1970 the 3-litre Capri V6 went on sale, priced at $3230. This newcomer rewrote the performance rules for cars of its size and had Mount Panorama written all over it. Not literally, but it did cash in on the GTHO’s cachet with bonnet pins and Super Roo decals. Here was the marketing genius of Ford Australia managing director Bill Bourke at work.
At once Bourke linked the V6 with the Falcon GT while distancing it by calling it the 3000 V6, rather than the 3000 GT as it was known in the UK. The 1600 GT was renamed the XL. Both engine and gearbox were fully imported.
The 3000 V6 was assembled with 40 per cent local content. There were vibrant new colours including a smart metallic olive green and a very light ice blue. The bonnet got matt paint and a huge scoop. Beneath it sat a reworked version of the Zodiac 3.0-litre V6. Some pundits had predicted Ford Oz would use the heav y Falcon six which would have been a recipe for lack of balance and terminal plough understeer.
Even so, the V6 understeered more than its four-cylinder siblings. Leaf springs and narrow five-inch Rostyle rims did it no dynamic favours either. With three and a third turns lock to lock on a 10.35 metre turning circle, the steering was low-geared but no more so than, say, a Fiat 125’s.
The 3000 V6 was low-geared in the fashion of the era. At its maximum speed of 114 miles per hour, engine rpm were 5,600. An overdrive would have been ideal but the Capri’s low
“THIS SLICK COUPE WOULD HAVE BEEN THE FORD COLT”
floorpan precluded this. To make the gearbox more compact, Zodiac Mark IV internals were used in a Zephyr Mark III casing.
Even so, it was not the best handling car on the road with the narrow-tracked rear-end showing some willingness to wag. Leaf springs and standard five-inch rims made a sturdy contribution to such waywardness. At three and third turns lock to lock on a 10.35m turning circle, the steering was quite low-geared.
At 1070kg the 3000 GT was 155kg heavier (say two adults) than its four-cylinder predecessor but 38 extra kW and double the torque cancelled that penalty two or three times over. It would cover the zero to 100km/h sprint in 10 seconds. Few cars in the price class (read also: Bathurst class) could match its standing 400m time of 16.8 – at least until the XU-1 boomed out its own challenge a few months later.
An extremely youthful James Laing-Peach, writing in the June 1970 edition of Wheels magazine, opined: “Our cryptic summation of the four-banger Capri was – getting to be a motor car rather than just a means of transport. Feel assured the Capri V6 has gone the whole way – it is a real motor car.”
The Capri 3000 V6 had a fantastic road presence and the relatively low numbers in which it was sold gave it a real exclusivity. How I coveted one in 1970: my friend’s dark green car so often parked outside in the street would have filled the bill; If only!