Ford Capri (Ford Capri)

Member Name: slackjack

Product:	Ford Capri
Date:	30/06/00 (620 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun and cheap.

Disadvantages: People might laugh. Some bad rust traps.

I wanted a Capri for years - they ran in the family. When I passed my test there was no way I could afford to run one - the insurance costs were ridiculous. When I was 18, I was offered my Grandfathers 1978 1.6GL, but insurance costs of £850 for third part fire and theft meant I didn't hang onto it for very long.

A couple of years later though, after a string of Ford Fiestas had built me up some no claims bonus, I found that insurance for a 1.6 had dropped to a far more sensible £300 fully comprehensive - little more than I was paying for a Fiesta 1.1 Ghia. So I started hunting around. A surprising number of large garages had Capri's knocking around - usually because someone had a soft spot for the car and didn't want to see it end up at the auctions. There were a fair few scarily rough and cheap examples, but for a little extra cash there were cars really worth investigating. First was a beautiful 13 year old British racing green 2.0S, but at £2000, the price was a little optimistic, and I had to walk away. Next I found a Rover dealer selling a 12 year old 1.6LS, with 35000 miles on the clock. The owners were apparently in Saudi Arabia and now wanted to get rid of the car. It was in first class condition, but for one wing which had been badly replaced. Rust had taken hold in the seam, and pushed the wing out so that was no longer flush with the rest of the car. The owners wouldn't budge from £1250, and I could see that with it's metallic blue paint, sorting the wing out was going to be an expensive job. Finally, I came across an 11 year old white 1.6LS with 50-odd thousand on the clock at another Rover dealer, again priced at £1250. The old guy who owned the garage was one of those with a soft spot for the car. He could tell I was genuinely interested, and immediately dropped the price of the car to £1000. That's still expensive for an 11 year old car, but it was in pretty good nick, low mileage and included a full MOT and
3 month warranty. And it had had some useful bits of work done to it - the gas struts that support the boot when it opens had just been replaced at a cost of about £60, and the poor Ford radio had been replaced - not with anything special, but it meant the job of carving the old style radio out had been done making my job of fitting something halfway decent much easier.

The car takes some getting used to. It's much lower than your average car - a complete change from the Fiesta I was used to. The long bonnet seems huge making the road seem a very long way away, and rear visibility is pretty poor. It's not the easiest car in the world to get used to parking. The driving position is comfortable, and the seats in my LS are firm - better then the late 70's GL that I used to own. The car is fairly quiet, but suffers slightly from only having a four speed gear box. The gear box is smooth and feels nice to operate. Performance from the 1.6 engine isn't incredible - you'll often find nasty little hatchbacks outgunning you but it pulls well and overtakes reasonably, and is capable of a pretty respectable top speed. Although the car feels very different from your run of the mill hatch to begin with, it really doesn't take long to get used to. After owning it for only a week, climbing back into the Fiesta was not a pleasant experience. The driving position felt too upright and far forward, the car was noisy and slow, and the gearbox frankly appalling.

Life with a Capri is pretty painless, and a lot of fun. The car has been very reliable. I had to have the carburettor reconditioned when the car started getting a bit thirsty, but this only cot me about £30. Fuel consumption is normally in the region of 30mpg, but can be better if the car is driven carefully (not something that tends to happen to often with me, unfortunately). Most problematic have been the brakes, but this is work that only tends to come to light at MOT time, and is
never too expensive. The radiator has been replaced (£60 for a reconditioned unit), and it's had a couple of exhaust sections replaced (£30-£40 a piece). Apart from that, I've had no major expense in 20000 miles of driving. When I bought it, it stood on it's original steel wheels with rather skinny looking 165X13 tyres, which really didn't look nice as they left the wheel arches looking very empty. A friend of a friendly mechanic was selling a set of alloy wheels from a 2.8i Capri for £50. Three of them had massive 205/60X13 tyres fitted, and two had no tyres at all. I bought a couple of 185/70X13 remoulds for the front for about £50 which have lasted me ever since. When the time came to replace the big rear tyres, I managed to get hold of a pair of 205/60X13 Michelin MXVs part worn for £35 - tyres that would have cost £70-£100 each new. When things do go wrong, the fact that the car is a Ford has it's advantages. Parts are cheap, and many of them are shared with Cortinas, Sierras, Escorts - you name it - of various ages, ensuring there's a steady supply of most things. Anything that Ford doesn't make can often be found being made by specialist companies, such is the Capri's following.

If you buy a Capri, your mates WILL take the mickey. That's guaranteed. I've found however, then taking them for a spin around the block will soon change their minds - especially of you floor it out of junctions, making the back end give a little twitch. You get the occasional idiotic boy racer in his Nova try to give you a race, but my preferred method here is to let them zoom past. They'll think they look great until they realise you're not playing, then they just look stupid. One of the nicest aspects of ownership, is that fellow Capri drivers will wave and flash their lights as you pass.

The problem is, now there isn't really another car I fancy owning. The car is nearly 16 years old now, and rust has t
aken hold in the typical Capri places - front of the wings, back wheel arches - all due to a design that traps mud and moisture. I thought about getting another car, but what could be as much fun to own and drive, yet be so cheap to run. So, the solution? The car is soon off for major surgery. The front end will be taken off and new wings will be put on (with plenty of underseal and waxoyl all over the undersides), and the old 1.6 is getting swapped for a reconditioned 2 litre unit. Then I'll be ready for my Capri's next 16 years.

Summary: