My Capri History so far...

For as long as i can remember I've had a passion for American muscle cars, and this is pretty much where my passion for the Ford Capri stems from. I've always thought of them as British muscle cars, even the humblest 1.6 has loads of potential, its so easy to make them look really American and engine swaps are simple.          

    Anyway, when I was 13 I asked for a Capri for my birthday and to my surprise my parents thought it would be a great idea as it would keep me out of trouble! I got an MOT failed 1.6LS (A37 WKW) and my mates and I began to mess about with it. My Grampy helped loads and shared our enthusiasm, probably because he was equally obsessed with cars and he was glad I was! Unfortunately we didn't really know much about cars at the time and my lack of money and our lack of experience saw the end of that Capri, but I kept hold of it until I was about 16 and I needed space so it had to be scrapped - a sad day! It did really help me and my mates to learn about how cars work and hence I look back very fondly on it.

   It was when I worked part time in a garage in Hoylake when I was 15 that I acquired my next Capri. The Blue Capri , a 1.6LS,  was saved from the scrappy and we actually made this one pretty good (i got it into readers cars in Classic Ford). This car had refurbished 3.0l ghia alloys, beige ghia interior, RS front spoiler smoothed in with fibreglass, Turbo-Tail rear spoiler, full Ashley exhaust system and a 2.0l cylinder head. It was pretty good but needed a full respray as it was extremely multi-coloured! My mates and I had a lot of fun with this car and have many amusing stories to tell about it! 

   When I turned 17 and passed my driving test the blue Capri was still somewhat unfinished. I worked through the summer at a factory and bought a mad custom pickup truck (I will upload pics of the truck soon and have a separate section) but 3 months after buying it it failed the MOT and i was carless again so soon after getting my freedom! My mum came into a little bit of money and one day on the train on the way back from Rampworx in Liverpool she rang me and said that there was a standard black 1.6 Laser at a local garage for £800 and did I want it! Obviously it was mine later that day (02/02/2002 quite an easy date to remember) and that was the start of my fun with D48 RBG.

  Its been through a few stages in the past few years but it has been so much fun. I fitted chrome bullet mirrors at first along with taking the laser stripes and the plastic moulding off the side. Then I took the bumpers off it and transferred the Turbo Tail from the Blue Capri to it along with the full Ashley system. I put in a Blaupunkt CD player, subwoofer, amplifier and 6x9's. I love listening to music (mostly rock but fairly open minded) and combining that love with driving on my favourite roads in my Capri is such a buzz. I made a grille from aluminium mesh and flushed the indicators into the two outer holes of the front valance, I think this brings out the shape of the car more as the bumpers are far too eighties for my liking. I bought a 1979 light blue 1.6 GL automatic Capri for its black interior (i replaced the interior and sold that car to my mate) but decided that with no headrests it was a bit dangerous considering my occasionally 'enthusiastic' driving style so fitted a pair of Recaros up front. I fitted Deflex polybushes all round as well as 2.8i bilstiens and vented discs up front, which pretty much banished brake fade. At one point I had off-centre twin shelby stripes over the top but after a while I decided they where quite literally over the top so took them off, they did look smart though and I had them on for about 7-8 months. The back lights where tinted deep red and i wet-and-dryed all the paint off the wiper arms so they gleamed in the sunlight..

     I raided a scrap 2.0 auto Capri in a local scrappy and fitted the 32/36 DGAV carb to my 1.6 with a Kand N and it didn't half make a difference to the speed (and the noise -THE NOISE!) of the thing! I did however lust after a 2.0 from my many years of reading about 1.6 - 2.0 pinto engine swaps in classic ford. One day I got talking to someone and he said he knew of a 2.1 pinto in a three door Cossie look-a-like sierra that I could have for £30 if I helped to hire a van and remove the car from Wales. I did that and took the engine home, cleaned it up and painted it red, replaced some gaskets, and with the help of my mates bolted it into my Capri over about a week. I kept the 1.6 gearbox and diff and the acceleration is awesome compared to what it used to be, lots of fun and it goes sideways in the dry so easily! Unfortunately the increased power exploded the gearbox but it wasn't to much of a problem, just put in another 1.6 box and fingers crossed this one will last a bit longer!

Shortly after fitting the 2.1 lump I visited the now retired but excellent Ian Harwood in Ellesmere port. He had a set of wheels piled in the middle of his workshop. They looked like they had been taken straight off a big V8 Muscle car. BFGoodrich tyres and deep dish 3-piece 13 inch slotmags -  10 inch wide rears and  9 inch wide fronts. I put one wheel on the back of my Capri and lowered the jack down only to find that the arch sat on top of the tread and about 5 inches of tread was on show! I bought a set of mkII Escort tarmac rally arches (two wide rears and two rears) and got the lot for £150. I set about my mint arches with a huge angle grinder wearing an old leather jacket and a pair of aviator sunglasses for protection! After a lot of grinding, bending, snapping, drilling, sweating and bleeding the wheels fitted on and looked flamin' great ! Dream come true territory it was....... I say 'it was' as the four wheels only stayed on for about 3 weeks as late one night driving down past Calday Rugby club towards the roundabout my nearside wheel decided that 3- piece wasn't enough and about 8 - piece seemed more like it. As i double clutched into second and planted my foot down there was a sickening bang and i slid into the pavement near my exit. On investigating i saw my tyre was  up in the bushes and my wheel was destroyed! After this I had to put some pepper pots on it and it never looked the same and i never got round to finishing the arches.

The whole of 2004 I worked in Pizza Hut with loads of my mates (what a brilliant job that was - I really doubt I'll ever have a job so fun in all my life - I woke up gutted if i remembered I WASN'T in work that day! - that's how a job should be) this job did spell the end of my Capri though. The excess wear and tear and small wage coupled with the fact that I had to use the car even if it wasn't running too well resulted in a few stressful times of trying to fix it before my shifts! And okay i suppose it was my fault in the end - I knew the bearing was on its way out in the offside front wheel but kinda didn't do anything about it and yep - it exploded at about 60mph on the way back from a delivery in Barnston. And, well, its still on my parents drive now. This happened July-ish 2004 and helped me to decide whether to go to Uni or not. Hence I'm writing this in Stoke-on-Trent at Staffs University - pleased I decided to come but desperate to be back on the road again.

This Summer the ' Raucous B@$t@rd' will be back on the road. better than ever.........

Lots of thanks to people!

Thanks to my Mum and Dad for putting up with my car buying ways and for letting me keep them in the garage.... and in the drive... and in the back garden. And on the road outside the house. Thankyou :)

Thanks to Stu, for always helping us with the cars and for his infinite car knowledge and kindness - good luck with the 302 Capri!

Cheers to my equally car obsessed mates for giving me a hand when needed!  Send me pictures of your cars and I will put them all up here

Thanks to my lovely girlfriend Libby for putting up with my car like ways....