FORD CAPRI 2.8 INJECTION

Year of manufacture 1982 Recorded mileage 58,000 Asking price £27,750 Vendor Royston’s Automotive Classic Evolution, Handcross, West Sussex; 01444 400996; www.roystonsclassic.co.uk WHEN IT WAS NEW Price £7993 Max power 160bhp Max torque 166lb ft 0-60mph 7.8 secs Top speed 130mph Mpg 26

Do not adjust your sets. That really is what you can expect to pay for a mint Ford Capri these days. Fast Fords have always commanded a premium, but the glass ceiling has been shattered in recent times with six figures not unheard of.

This, listed with new dealer Royston’s Automotive Classic Evolution in Handcross, West Sussex, might not be a Brooklands or a homologation-special RS, but it does pack a Cologne V6. And with that comes performance that is more than a match for its headline stablemates, so much so that in a hot Capri group test a few years ago in this very magazine the two-eight rounded out the set. The numbers speak volumes: its 160bhp is good for 130mph, and it gets to 60mph from standstill quicker than many modern warm hatches in 7.7 secs.

Those boringly capable moderns don’t have the same aura, either. Consider the racy three-spoke wheel, like something straight out of the peak European Touring Car Championship era, the crisp dials punctured into the dash (ditto) and the low-slung stance. The figure-hugging seats pull off tartan just as well as that hatch from Wolfsburg, and those 13in pepperpot wheels (including the spare) suit it down to the ground. The exhaust is also a stainless-steel option.

The Capri has transcended the car world: everyone can pick one out and everyone does when they see one, whether they mean to or not. Though they have a certain baggage from certain TV shows, they carry it with a charm, a swagger and an attitude that makes such misgivings fleeting. Capris are cool – regardless of what anyone thinks, furry dice, names-on-the-sunstrip and all.

This particular one-owner 1982 car is a proper example, too. It’s in that Goldilocks zone: at 58,000 its mileage is not so low that you wonder what will need freeing-up or how far you’ll have to go to blow away any cobwebs, and it’s not so high that you’re wondering what will need replacing first. As it is, you’ll have a very good idea about what has and hasn’t been touched because there is history to its first MOT – though the DVLA suggests that it’s clocked up barely 2000 miles since 2006. But its most recent MOT is whistle-clean.

Given the recent values achieved for these cars, such as the estimate demolishing £22,000 paid at Bonhams for a 2.8i that hadn’t moved for 20 years, it all points to one thing: now is almost certainly the time.