CAPRI RS2800

If only Ford’s AVO division hadn’t been shut down when it was, the world would have surely seen many more ‘special’ performance models – including a Capri RS2800 in the mid-’70s…

Ford had planned to build a very special Mk2 Capri...

Straight away, I must make it clear that this was not a different name for the fuel-injected Capri ’2.8i’ which would be launched in 1981 – for it was to be a rather more specialised car which was being developed in 1974. Like the MkI-based Capri RS2600 and Capri RS3100 which had already been evolved at AVO, this was to be another AVO-inspired machine. However, as it was to be based on the new-shape Capri MkII hatchback, it would be the first of a revised-generation of Capri-based ‘specials’.

Start by recalling the specification of the original Capri II 3000GT which went on sale in March 1974, and one can see why AVO (whose product planning was led by Bob

Howe and Mike Moreton) set out to make this one more special. They had already started work on the MkII Escort RS2000 and RS Mexico types, but found time for a ‘new’ Capri too. Whereas the RS2000 had been built in Germany, and the rare RS3100 at Halewood in the UK, this machine was always intended to be built at AVO in Essex. Development work began in October 1974, and the launch was confidently expected to be in the summer of 1975.

The style, developed in Germany, featured a deep front air-dam, a large rear spoiler, widened front and rear wing pressings, and would have been produced with wide-rim alloy wheels. Power would come from the latest 2,792cc fuel-injected version of the Ford-Cologne V6, which would produce 160bhp (the 3000GT, complete with its 3-litre Essex V6, was rated at 135bhp), which would have delivered a top speed of 125mph – quite remarkable by mid-1970s standard.

Drawing on all the experience they already had with the MkI cars, AVO decided to use carryover Capri RS2600-type suspension, which included single-leaf rear springs and radius arms, along with gas-filled Bilstein shock absorbers. Those extended wing pressings were meant to cover 7x14in. alloy wheels (AVO type, for the ‘pepper-pots’ had not yet been designed…) with low-profile 205/60 tyres, which of course hid ventilated front-wheel disc

brakes, though an anti-lock feature was not yet ready for installation. This time around, too, AVO was pitching for the re-building of otherwise standard body shells at AVO itself, before mechanical assembly began, for which space could certainly be found at South Ockendon.

All this was very exciting, particularly as AVO’s development engineers (led by Rod Mansfield, who would later set up the SVE operation) thought that they could make very significant improvements to the existing MkII car’s handling. If you recall just how well the later 2.8i handled, we should remind you that it was Mansfield’s team which also carried out that transformation in 1980-1981.

If the pricing was right of the RS2800 (and this was never settled), the marketing experts thought that up to 2,000 cars a year could be sold. Not only that, but as an expensive ‘option’ it was proposed to make a Ford-UK Essex V6 engine available, in 3.1-litre form, so that the new car could receive sporting homologation and (as with the current ‘works’ Capris being raced from Ford-Germany), could then use the 24-valve 3.4-litre Cosworth GA V6, which was certain to unleash more than 420bhp, and be a potential race winner in Touring Car events.

This all looked extremely promising, and if the world’s economic climate had not collapsed so markedly (as a result of the Energy crisis of 1973/1974) the Capri RS2800 would certainly have gone ahead. There was, in addition, another barrier to its progress, for influential top managers at Ford thought that AVO’s body-building capabilities were not up to the standard of those which existed at Halewood or in Cologne, and tried to take over the bodyassembly contract for themselves.

There was worse to come – and a look back at these quoted dates will make their own point. The Energy Crisis had struck in the winter of 1973/1974, and inflation began to climb inexorably. This caused many potential orders to be lost, not only at AVO, but at mainstream Ford plants too. First of all, it was suggested that AVO’s existing products – Escorts and Capris of various types – could be taken back into those plants, but that AVO could therefore be closed down completely. Even as development approval for the RS2800 was given (in October 1974), the death penalty was read out on AVO’s operation, and the very last of the cars was produced in January 1975.

The Capri RS2800, therefore, never went on sale – but it wasn’t all bad news. In the next two or three years, another branch of Ford’s sprawling empire developed, and eventually did significant business with the X-Pack programme, whereby certain after-sales dress-up/mechanical tune-up kits were made available. Naturally there was such a pack for the MkII (and later MkIII) Capri, and if you take a look at the listing of what was available, it is amazing to note just how much of what would have been ‘Capri RS2800’ survived…