(first posted 3/30/2017) Building and exporting a compact convertible was quite a challenge for Ford Australia. They had built small, front-wheel-drive models before but never droptops. The Capri was to establish an Australian export program and fly the flag for the Australian automotive industry, the first Aussie car exported in any real numbers to North America.
Exports to the US were always the linchpin of the Capri program, codenamed SA30 in development. Any Australian sales volume was going to be small as, despite our generally sunny climate, convertibles have never been hugely popular here.
The Capri was initially planned for export to North America and Europe. European exports never eventuated but the Capri’s sale through North American Lincoln-Mercury dealerships went ahead as planned. There, the Capri was sold alongside the mechanically-related, Mexican-built Tracer. Both vehicles were derived from the 1985 Mazda 323 platform which meant that by the time the Capri was launched, its Mazda platform-mate was being replaced.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, niche vehicle lover Bob Lutz played a part in the Capri’s development. The Ghia Barchetta concept of 1983 was his brainchild and he lobbied hard for it to be produced using Fiesta mechanicals. Alas, he was overruled by executives who didn’t see a market for the car. The idea and design were put on the shelf, only to be dusted off for the Capri. Had the Capri launched when Bob Lutz wanted it to be, the car’s story might have been very different.
Unfortunately, timing would prove to be the Capri’s worst enemy. The car was in danger of being cancelled during development by CEO Donald Petersen due to persistent quality issues, and its launch was delayed by a year to iron these out and to fit a driver’s side airbag. This meant the Capri started hitting showrooms just as the Mazda Miata/MX-5 did. Although the Mazda also used some 323 components, it was a purer sports car with excellent handling courtesy of a rear-wheel-drive platform.
The delayed launch of the Capri also meant the car looked just a tad dated by the time it reached showrooms. Its styling was a more conservative interpretation of the 1983 Ghia Barchetta concept. In a showroom in 1984, the Capri would have looked radical. But it was launched in 1989, where its angular lines subscribed more to the 1980s origami design school instead of the new, 1990s organic style evinced by the Miata.
Although the MX-5’s launch overshadowed the Capri’s, that’s not to say the Capri was a bad steer. The 323 platform was a good set of bones to work from and the Capri handled well. But the Miata handled better and although it was a two-seater, the Capri’s rear seats were pretty rubbish and hardly a selling point.
The Capri launched with a choice of two Mazda engines: a single overhead cam, naturally-aspirated 1.6 four with 82 hp with either a five-speed manual or three-speed (later four) automatic, and a Miata-beating, turbocharged 1.6 four (132 hp, 136 ft-lbs) offered only with the five-speed stick. The SOHC NA four was quickly replaced with a twin-cam mill boasting 100 hp and 95 ft-lbs; it was this engine that opened the North American Capri range.
In Australia, the Capri undercut the MX-5 by a few thousand dollars. In the US, that wasn’t the case. In Australia, the Capri was one of the few inexpensive convertibles on sale, facing competition only from the dated and pricier VW Cabriolet. In the US, there was no shortage of inexpensive droptops, from fun little runabouts like the Geo Metro to larger fare like the Chrysler LeBaron and Ford Mustang.
Although competition was fierce in the US and the Capri was hardly the kind of car shoppers would expect to find in a Lincoln-Mercury showroom, it at least appeared to be poised for success in Australia. Alas, timing conspired against the Capri once again and it reached showrooms just before a recession hit. Early issues with leaking roofs, although quickly rectified, scared some buyers away. Still, the Capri’s lower price tag meant it outsold the MX-5 most years by more than 2-to-1.
1992-94 Aussie-market Clubsprint
Coupes and convertibles tend to be more impacted by changing tastes and fashions. Capri sales peaked in Australia in its second year of production, with 4,413 sold in 1990. Sales then plummeted to 1,643 in 1991, where they remained relatively steady for the rest of the car’s run. It was a similar story in the US market, sales peaking in 1990 and then plummeting shortly thereafter despite an attractive facelift. In the US, it was the Mazda that outsold the Ford by around 2-to-1. The Capri never reached its projected 35,000-unit annual target and a resurgent Aussie dollar hampered profitability.
Memories from my childhood: a Capri on the cover of the 1994 “Refidex”
In Australia, where affordable droptops were less common, the Capri enjoys a loyal following today. It seems as though enthusiasts flock to used MX-5s, while Capris are kept by folk who like the way it looks and just want a nice droptop runabout.
Ultimately, the Capri was a victim of bad timing. It reused a concept car design from 6 years prior to its launch and arrived just as Mazda was revolutionizing the compact convertible market. From a North American perspective, it offered neither the practicality of a Cavalier convertible, the ultimate dynamic ability and style of a Miata, nor the low, low price of a Geo Metro convertible. To make matters worse, it launched with some well-publicized build quality issues. That the car was modestly successful in Australia means little—the car’s success hinged on the US market and it flopped. It’s a pity it took Ford Australia’s North American export program down with it.
Related Reading:
Automotive History: 1989 Mazda MX-5 Miata – Simple Pleasures
Curbside Classic: 1990 Mazda MX-5 Miata – Nothing Complicated; But Done Properly
Curbside Classic: 1989 Buick Reatta – A Pudding With No Theme
I thought the styling was OK, except for the dumb-looking trunk. But just ‘OK’ was not a recipe for success against the Miata. The Clubsprint’s round tail-lights would’ve been a big improvement.
A friend that moved to the Midwest owned one for years. Later, I had to find parts for him in my local salvage yard, as there were none to be found where he lived. Eventually, the engine electronics died, and finished the car.
Happy Motoring, Mark
I think even if the Miata hadn’t arrived, the Capri would have had trouble. I always thought it looked like a bad knock-off of the first-gen Toyota MR2:
^^^Mark D, I’ve occasionally looked longingly at a well-cared-for Craigslist Capri as a possible “toy convertible,” but your post gives me caution. Care to elaborate about less-obtainable parts? (My wife will thank you for talking me out of it!)
I remember when both this and the Miata made their debut. To me, the thing that killed the Capri was it’s looks.
The Miata’s styling was virtually perfect. The Capri just looked off in comparison. I still cannot exactly put my finger on it, but I have always found the Capri odd looking. I don’t think I was alone.
I think it’s the proportions which make the car look iffy. It seems as if the front and the rear are equal in length. If the cabin was pushed more the back that would have helped its looks a lot.
For me, being a fan of the first two generations of Capri (US and Euro), this seemed like a joke, frankly. When I first saw the car’s name I thought to myself, what the heck is this? I’d never considered the car as a ‘barchetta’ in the Fiat 750 idiom, it didn’t seem like a natural progression from the Fox body Capris that come before it.
I think William’s analysis is correct, there were too many better choices in the market at the time. I’ve wondered if the car had been named differently would it have done better?
The styling was definitely off, too bland and generic-looking for an image car. Too obviously a penny-pinched reskin of econobox bones.
I loved the Barchetta concept car, if they’d stuck to that styling it would have been much more appealing
I reckon the body sides are too flat. It looks like it needs some more top-to-bottom curvature through the doors – like the Miata. As it is, the front and rear somehow look wider than the middle.
“Had the Capri launched when Bob Lutz wanted it to be, the car’s story might have been very different.”
Doubtful. Even now, in the era of “import rulez sux”, these aren’t desirable.
A wonderful example of how corporate bureaucracy can fatally damage a reasonably good idea.
Off and different are cool. S low price means everything. Its a great classic car if one wants to set themselves spart. Mx5’s are so common you can find one on the side if the road. I haven’t seen thus Capri in years. And with Mazda mechanicals – its a classic car winner on the cheap. And this is coming from a man who had a 98 miata for 3 years. I liked the miata, but it never felt special to me.
Why didn’t Ford just use a re-skinned Miata? It would have saved them a lot of trouble.
Of course, nobody but GM makes mistakes, though…
Fiat is rebadging the miata as their new spider. Hard to believe.
It’s a bit more than that—five inches longer, different engine, suspension modifications. And the styling…well, I actually prefer it to the new Miata’s “Angry Birds” look.
I think the Fiat is prettier too. But the funny thing is I thought they were very well differentiated until I saw them side by side like that. There are a lot of details obviously shared between the two I’m immediately noticing in that picture. Most obvious – windshield, fender side markers, roll bars behind headrests, and soft top and it’s trim. Less obvious, the cutlines all match up despite different sheetmetal.
FCA did not have a lot of money to put in this low-volume project. it’s essentially a face-lift, different engine, and a few other things that cost as little as possible. But the results are pretty good, given that.
I agree, I’m just being nitpicky. When they’re not ide by side like that they look much more different than they are
I agree 100% – the new Fiat is gorgeous and a highly competent heir to the last 124/Spyder.
Because Ford Australia was already building Ford Lasers which is a rebadged 323, they already had the platform tooling, oddly enough there was a Ford Laser drop top too just not in Aussie, I got offered one for $100 last year rego on hold but only going on three cylinders I turned it down
Zackman, the simple answer is that Mazda soon was building Miata’s at full capacity, and didn’t need Ford sabotaging Miata sales. I don’t think Ford even asked them, for fear of getting the ‘dream on, FoMoCo’ fickle finger of fate.
Interesting read. As a former owner of a 73 Capri (bought just about the time this car hit the U.S. market) I was somewhat interested in this car, and I considered it’s being sourced from Australia as a plus. But while I’m not one of those folks who believes a “true” sports car MUST be RWD, what put me off about this version of the Capri was that it was basically a re-bodied Mazda 323. I mean, it was too obviously a FWD-based economy convertible in the same vein as the Geo Metro convertible.
I do agree with the assessment that had it been launched in the mid 80s, or even the late 80s, BEFORE the Miata it might have had a few more sales. Ironically, Ford in Europe would build a sporty car, based on Fiesta mechanicals (the Ka), that I believe was more successful than this car and is still being produced. And just as ironically, the Ka is a small coupe…just like the original Capris.
Finally, it’s almost laughable that convertibles aren’t all that popular in a country that is (perhaps wrongly?) thought of as having an abundance of sunny weather. Yet, convertibles are somewhat popular, or were until “recently”, in the U.K. a country known for it’s rainy, foggy weather.
Convertible in sunny weather == sun burn.
Convertible in cloudy/foggy weather == take in every last bit of sunshine.
The Capri came into existence as the result of the following business factor.
Ford’s NA Marketing wanted an affordable convertible. Australian government incentives put SA30 on the consideration list. The other two candidates were a Tempo convertible program and an ST16 convertible. ST16 became the Ford Probe, but at the time of the convertible decision, ST16 was thought to be a Mustang replacement, for which a convertible would have supported its Mustang image. The ztempo alternative quickly feel off the consideration list. The SA30 Capri won over the ST16 for the following reasons:
1. Mustang purists were not wanting any part of ST16 as a Mustang replacement. So it would have to be a Probe convertible, with little incremental volume over a carryover Mustang convertible.
2. The Probe convertible was a costly conversion as its hatchback quarter panels required more retooling thank a sedan/trunk bodystyle.
3. The Australian government’s incentives afforded Ford of Australia the ability to fund the SA30, for Ford NA did not have to fund it.
4. Ford of Australia greatly underestimated the material costs of the product and made a simple assumption the convertibles would be exempt from NA’s new passive restraint requirements. When they learned no exempt would be allowed, they thought they could piggyback from the Mazda 323 convertible effort for passive restraint compliance. Ah, but the 323 convertible was never certified for safety in NA. This lead to unplanned reengineering to add air bags, and resulted in the late introduction.
Mazda never offered their LWS program (Light Weight Sports Car – Miata) to Ford, but Ford indirectly helped Mazda’s LWS program by providing NA market convertible benchmark information and top stack material specifications/test procedures.
Believe it or not the probe was intended as a mustang. Till ford smartened up.
1 “Deadly Sin” avoided.
Yeah, the Probe was the New Coke of automobiles. There was nothing wrong with it (I know a few former owners, and they loved theirs), it just wasn’t a Mustang. Once Ford’s plans hit the news, they heard that message loudly and clearly from the Mustang faithful.
Where the analogy breaks down: Coca-Cola actually killed “old” Coke before the blowback started. Ford had the good sense to float some trial balloons and course-correct before the Fox-body Mustang was killed.
I think that “course-correction” caused Ford to keep the Fox Mustang around longer than they had planned. 1979 to 1993 is a very long life for a product platform. And isn’t the SN95 (starting in ’94) called by some the Fox 2? Heck, my S-197 ‘stang likely has some Fox underpinnings.
The only things on your S197 that has any lineage to the Fox are maybe a few fasteners. The S197 is loosely derived of the Lincoln LS’s DEW98 platform, which itself may have some loose roots in the MN12 platform – which is one reason modern Mustangs appear so huge. The Fox almost lived on with all new suspensions and proportions for 05 instead, there were even some clays based on it, but the changes necessary for it were all deemed cost prohibitive.
I’ve have a 97 and previously had an 84.
The 97 is a Fox with the Mumps, but definitely still a Fox underneath.
Drew, some excellent further information about the Capri’s development! Thank you for sharing. That helps fill in some blanks further.
William, I had started an article on the Capri Barchetta with some more of the background, but had lost the USB drive it (and others) was on. Good news is I found it recently, so I will get it finished and up asap.
It really was a comedy of errors, from the multi-national development team (Italian/Japanese/Australian) to the platform and airbag-driven re-working. I’d have to refer to my notes but the development cost was high enough that the program didn’t make the money back.
I look forward to that article, John! 😀
Never knew these had a Bob Lutz connection too, but I am not surprised in the slightest.
I remember these during my childhood, they were a bit less common than the Miata but they were always the “other” sports car to my awareness at the time. I thought the styling was dumpy even as a kid, it reminded me of a vacuum cleaner. BUT there was a line of diecast, probably 1:43 scale, toy cars in the 90s with operable convertible flip tops (freaking awesome to me) and one of the two I had was a yellow Capri, and that was my favorite toy.
My son had one of those toy Capris. His was white. I did some black paint-outs to try and improve the styling. Yeah, on a kid’s toy – the looks bothered me that much!
lol I did that with a lot of toys, I even “painted” a few hot wheels and matchbox cars completely black with permanent marker.
And you know what? My Capri was white, it occurred to me just after I could edit my post. I had more than one of those flip top cars so I was probably mixing them up, the Capri must have been my favorite because I can’t for the life of me remember what the yellow one could have been, maybe a Miata? I wish I remembered the brand who made those.
The Miata was a smash success when it debuted in 1989 and, suddenly, everyone wanted a piece of that sports car pie. Unfortunately, no one wanted to ante up the exorbitant R&D for a dedicated car (like Mazda did), one which would take years, if not decades, to recoup the costs and make a profit and, then, ‘only’ if it was a hit. Mazda hit paydirt, but it was a huge gamble, too.
So, things got watered down quite a bit for the Miata competitors to hedge their bets. GM came out with the Pontiac Fiero, and Ford followed with the Capri. The Fiero was a pretty car, but its mid-engine layout derived from the Citation FWD drivetrain, along with a Chevette front suspension, pretty much spelled its doom. The Capri had better mechanicals but it, too, ran with an economy car FWD drivetrain, which isn’t nearly as desirable for a sports car as RWD, and it wasn’t that great looking, either.
The bottom line is if you want to successfully play in the sports car game, you better be willing to invest a lot to get the real thing, then pray it pans out over the long haul.
The Fiero never competed against the Miata since it ended production a full year before the Mazda’s debut.
I think part of it was that volume automakers didn’t yet see the light that RWD was superior in cars like these. For ten years they had been boasting through marketing how FWD is superior in every way imaginable, and when you repeat something to yourself over and over again you start to believe it, and that’s where the impetuous for the Probe being the next gen Mustang came from. The only automaker truly waving the flag for RWD as a dynamically superior drivetrain layout during the 80s were BMW. Everyone else trying to undercut them was trying and failing to do so with FWD based platforms, I could swear I’ve even seen advertisements touting their using FWD as higher tech.
The Fiero was conceived in the early 1980’s as a sporty 2 seat commuter car. Despite it getting a GT package and a V6 on offer, Pontiac never considered the car to be a sports car. The last thing Pontiac wanted to due was to steal sales from it’s actual sports car (the Pontiac Firebird)
The same year that the Fiero arrived(1984) Toyota offered their own 2 seat sporty car called the MR2. Both the MR2 and Fiero were mid-engine cars. Neither one was a competitor of the Miata. The Fiero was gone before the Miata arrived and the MR2 was doing its own thing.
The Miata was created to compete with the ghost of the classic British Roadster (Triumph, MGB, Elan etc) and in this respect the Miata was a big success. By buying a Miata (especially the first generation) you were getting a updated successor to the “bugs in teeth” classic roadster but with the added feature of it being reliable(With a BL car, you never quite knew if it might start up each morning)
You obviously drank the GM Kool Aid at the time, because if you knew the origins and original intent of the Fiero, it was very much intended to be a genuine sports car. They changed it to “commuter car” because the thrashy, wheezy Iron Duke was certainly not a genuine sports car engine, but that was just a cop out.
The MR2 was most definitely a competitor to the Miata. Just because some sports cars had mid engines and a targa roof didn’t mean they weren’t genuine sports cars and all competing for the same market. Both the MR2 and Fiero were of course heavily influenced by the Fiat X1/9, wich was very much a genuine sports car, and a major influence in that market.
The Miata wasn’t designed to compete with any “ghosts”. It was designed to bring some fresh blood into a market that had been stagnating for a long time, and it did that, more successfully than anyone imagined. The Miata was a hit/fad, of the kind that comes along from time to time, beyond what can be predicted. But that was in the first few years, when everyone wanted one. That soon died down, along with its sales, but it did leave it as the market leader.
Many of the buyers of the Miata in the first few years were folks that would never have considered an English roadster. These were mostly first-time sports car buyers, not veterans of the genre.
I agree, and to your last point I remember the original or at least early owners of Miatas were not traditional British sports car enthusiasts, they seemed to be mostly high school girls whose daddy bought them a cute convertible. The drivers of Miatas during the 90s in general seemed interchangeable with owners of Geo Metro convertibles frankly. It always seemed like a relatively recent phenomena that enthusiasts turned the Miata, especially the first generation, into a sports car icon, most likely because they bottomed out in value and enthusiasts tend to have no money.
Yup; and a lot of young working women who could afford one. We lived in Silicon Valley at the time the Miata came out, and every young/youngish, single woman at the time wanted one, or had one. Some guys too. Huge fad/hit. And yes, nary a one was a real “sports car enthusiast”. Far from it. Their next car was probably an early CUV, like a RAV4 or CRV.
What I never understood was the diametrically opposed characterizations of the Miata from the US and UK automotive press. Here in the US the Miata was highly regarded as a true sports car and successor to the British classics, specifically MGB but to a certain extent also Triumph TR 4/5/6 or even Lotus Elan. The UK press derided it as a “hairdresser’s” car (a pretty offensive stereotype in itself) or a secretary’s car. Perhaps that was all due to national bitterness about the demise of the British sports car.
I don’t like to generalize, but you can almost always count on British automotive journalists to be catty to the extreme. Anything American is instantly mocked and Japanese and Korean cars are often scorned, too. It’s frustrating because magazines like CAR have beautiful photography, lovely long-form features (like driving a Rolls-Royce into the Arctic Circle) but really frustratingly subjective ratings. Even if an American or Japanese car has many admirable qualities, they’ll still find a way to knock it down, particularly if there’s any star-based rating system. I can’t stand it.
Compare and contrast with American magazines that generally show less overt bias, or Aussie magazines that, throwaway remark or two aside, are pretty damn fair and even-handed.
It’s the reason I stopped reading British car magazines a few years ago. That and the fixation on CO2 ratings and fuel economy… Not that those two things aren’t extremely important, but the Brit outlets go into so much detail about them and it gets very dry to read.
A lot of auto journos will trumpet cars from their homeland, too, but the Brit magazines can also be annoyingly nationalistic. I seem to recall overtly glowing praise of the Jaguar X-Type when it launched… While it wasn’t a bad car, it didn’t really deserve so much congratulatory coverage.
First off GM did not consider the Fiero a sports car. They would only green light the Fiero for production if the car was built as a sporty looking 2 seat commuter car with a small 4 cylinder engine that got good gas mileage and was cheap to build(hence going to the parts bins). The interest to GM was that it help GM’s CAFE numbers. Now Pontiac may have wanted it to be another sports car but GM had no interest in yet another sports car.
I don’t drink the GM Kool-aid and I am not a GM apologist, like you seem to be accusing me of being. The sad fact is that you are just biased against GM. What else would explain the lack of Deadly Sins (DS) for other car makers (such as Mercedes Benz (a company that has been making decidedly mediocre cars with piss poor reliability and resale value since the end of the W124 production and who is the one of the big reasons that folks in the USA cannot import any car newer then 25 years old) )
As for the Mazda Miata not competing with the ghosts of roadsters past. Oh hell yes they were. In 1979 Bob Hall (the father of the Miata) had a conversation with Mr. Kenichi Yamamoto (Mazda’s chief engineer at that time) Mr. Yamamoto asked Mr. Hall about what type of car Mazda might build next. Mr Hall mentioned that it was a big shame there was no more “bugs in the teeth” British roadsters made anymore. it had long been Mr. Hall’s dream to build a car that had British sports car like fun and Japanese car reliability. Mr. Yamamoto later took several spirited drives with classic British roadsters (such as the MGB, Triumph TR5 and TR6 and the first generation Lotus Elan)
The car was designed to be a modern rendering of the classic British roadster. It was designed with the though that it would attract both new customers that wanted an attractive car and also attract the folks that had/ or still had a classic British roadster. This has been well documented. Mr. Hall has given countless interviews about the Miata over the years.
It looks a lot like the first generation Lotus Elan (down to the hidden headlights)
You obviously missed my points.
Yes, GM insisted on calling it a “commuter car” in order to release it, because it was so heavily compromised as a sports car and they knew it. But that was a total BS thing; what the hell was a mid-engined ‘commuter car”? They just invented that as a cop-out, so that they could say we weren’t competing with sports cars, when the bad reviews all came out.
I’m saying that nobody in their right mind bought into that at the time; it was classic GM PR BS; a pathetic attempt to create cover for an under-developed sports car.
I quite understand about the historical inspiration of the Miata. I disagreed with you about your use of the word “compete with the ghosts of the British roadsters”. Maybe it was just a matter of interpretation. But how does one compete “with the ghosts”? They were extinct; there was nothing to “compete” against in the late 80s.
If you meant that the Miata was intended to “evoke the ghosts” or something like that, it might have made more sense.
If MB goes from the largest automotive company in the world to bankrupt in short order, you may see Paul do a Deadly Sins series on MB. The reality is they are thriving, and although on occasion they may have missed the mark with a product or reliability issues, their actions are nowhere near egregious as GM’s self-inflicted death.
Except for the Corvette or Escalade, no one aspires to a GM product. They’ve recently become competent, and even attractive in some instances, but the reality for 2-3 generations is there is no compelling reason to buy a GM except for price.
What if Ford developed the Capri as a mid engine to compete with the Pontiac Fiero? OR have the mid engine as a companion to the Capri FWD vert? Going further there was potential for a more potent high performance Merkur version but by 1988 – 89 Merkur was on the way out. Moving even further along, Lincoln showed the Vignale convertible as a potential Allante fighter, but nothing ever came of it. Sad that Ford didn’t want to take the risks back in the 1980’s.
Rebadged foreign subsidiary or Asian cars in US domestic showrooms generally do quite poorly. The early ’70s Capri being one of the few happy relative successes (which still eventually suffered currency issues), I suppose this effort was almost inevitable.
I’d agree with others that the styling is just off, and the fit and style of the top when up suggests some of the cheapest economy convertible conversions – think Renault Alliance or a Geo – and this was doomed to a collective “Meh” in L-M showrooms.
While the Mustang based Capri of the early ’80s obviously didn’t sell in numbers to keep Ford interested, it still was a better fit in L-M showrooms where something better than economy fittings was usually expected (despite Ford’s sometimes ridiculous sale of stripper Mercury products).
Too bad this ’85 ASC McLaren Capri conversion didn’t inspire Ford a little more……
As a child of the 90’s, this is always what I associated with the name “Mercury Capri” and I had no idea there was an ‘original’ model before… I rather liked these but they weren’t all too common even in SoCal. The final generation Cougar followed a similar development path if I recall correctly.
Were all of these painted white? My brother had a white one, and a friend’s husband drives a white one now that he bought used a couple of years ago.
Both of them were/are happy owners, since neither was looking for a sports car. If your expectations are something fun to drive on sunny days that’s reliable and cheap to own — and that has back-seat room for a kid or a briefcase, plus a trunk that holds one or two bags of groceries — these are fine little cars. Sort of a 4/5 scale LeBaron convertible.
I have never seen a white one in person, the only ones I have seen in person are red, blue and green/teal
c5karl:
The Capri and the Miata, like the Fiero that preceded them, was available in a very limited range of colors. Most were indeed white, but red and silver were also available. As the model progressed, different colors “arrived” to replace or add to the color choices. A dark blue, teal green, and I think for a short period even bright yellow were available.
I’m in the minority here, but I liked the Capri. For one, I prefer the angular look over the more rounded Miata — though I agree with some of the comments above suggesting that the final design wound up looking almost unfinished, thanks to some odd rear end treatment.
Another point I liked about this car was the 1.6-liter turbo engine. I owned a Mazda 323GTX with the same engine, and while it took some getting used to (little power under 2,000 rpm and noticeable turbo lag), I found it suitable and fun for a small car.
And finally, while many purists disregarded the Capri due to its FWD layout, I’m not averse to FWD, so for me that wasn’t a drawback.
Despite small sales, I still see a fair number of Capris around here in Virginia (OK, I know of 3 of them locally…), but I suspect the major mechanical systems have held up pretty well. As for build quality, probably not so great. Regardless, I still like these.
i had a new 1993 until 2000. it was always a 3rd or 4th car, but was bullet proof. A shift rod and an inside door handle broke during warranty. After that, only wear items. I’m 6′ 3” with shortish legs and a long spine. I could easily fit in a Capri. I couldn’t fit in a Miata. Look on line at all the mods to add headroom to a Miata, such as removing foam from the seat bottom.
The Capri’s seats had a lot of height adjustment. The rear seat back folded so long items fit. We had a downtown retail store with tight parking. The Capri fit.
I considered the Capri to be a Mazda 323 convertible, not a sports car; like my previous 6 Healey’s and 6 Triumphs. In that context and with lots of room it was fine, We lived in Central Ohio and Capri handled fine in the snow, although I wished I had the optional hardtop with rear window defrost. It was like a more modern Triumph Spitfire. Low price and lots of room for 2. Much more dependable though.
The ‘potato butt’ rear styling and ungainly taillights didn’t help this generation of Capri at all. Too bad they didn’t use a version of the ‘Clubsprint’ taillights (as pictured above) and a better-looking rear spoiler to disguise the derriere of the Capri.
Lol potato butt. I always figured this is what they were going for
I’ve had a few of these in both n/a and turbo trim. A fun weekend ride but no, I wouldn’t want to count on it as primary transportation he real utility for me is that either motor is practically a weekend swap into a Festiva. Effectively a 100% HP increase over the stock Mazda 1.3L.
They killed the Capri when they changed it from the fox body base to Begin with.
I would have loved to see what the 1987 and on fox Capri would have looked like.
“Any Australian sales volume was going to be small as, despite our generally sunny climate, convertibles have never been hugely popular here.”
While not HUGELY popular here, in relative terms drop-tops sold better, here, in the USA than in almost any other country in the world. Face it…we had the perfect climate, all things considered. At any given time, one could count upon at least five months’ worth of relatively dry, sunny weather, somewhere in the USA, during which one could get all the fresh-air driving one could want. Hell, when I owned my Mustang and Ambassador convertibles 30+ years ago in western Mass. – after three months of sub-zero Fahrenheit weather – dammit, my top was DOWN once the temperature surpassed 40° as, relatively, it felt like summer on a sunny day (snowbanks on the roadside or no) and keeping the windows up sure helped the heater in the Fords. The Rambler, no matter…that WeatherEye heating system was amazing. I bet I could have driven the Amby with the top down, windows down, heat on full blast during the annual January sub-zero cold snap and I’d work up a sweat. George Mason knew what he was doing with that climate-control system. I don’t miss the Mustangs too much, but that 990 convertible – damn, I want another one.
Don’t get me wrong! – I loved those Mustangs (a 1966, sun yellow and a ’67, puke green, both with black tops) and I now drive a 1990 Taurus wagon I CANNOT bear to part with, I like it so much…but that Amby 990, dark blue with a white top was just a ⅞-scale Lincoln, really. The original purchaser ordered every option in the book (I had the window sheet and the hidden build sheet, under the rear-seat fanny cushion). It drew comments everywhere I drove it, 20 years after it was built. People had forgotten about Rambler. All they knew was AMC Concords or Eagles or that junk. My vanity plate was “ITSA 65” just to ward off the most common question I’d get asked about it, well into the 1980s.
Only when the trunnion bushings rotted away, and every bump felt like a jackhammer hitting the front end, did I reluctantly sell that car. Now, I hear Steele in NC finally are making repro rubber parts for mid-1960s Ramblers. Five years too late.
Great article Will, as I’m just reading it now. The Capri was always a bit of an outlier, for more reasons than one. Above all, it just didn’t fit in with the Lincoln-Mercury crowd. It’s the same reason why the Tracer never caught on. L-M shoppers wanted larger, plusher cars with more features. The Capri being a compact convertible just made it even more of an oddity in showrooms (if dealers even actually ordered many for stock).
Well, I never put much stock in the issue what brand/dealership a car is sold in. If it’s truly a desirable car, folks don’t car what dealership/brand it’s in. And there’s plenty of examples of that in history.
The Opel Kadett was obviously a “bad fit” at Buick dealers, yet it became the #2 selling import brand and did quite well despite it.
The original Capri, sold at Mercury dealers, was also an unexpectedly big hit, and too became the #2 selling import in the country. Its buyers were polar opposite of the the “typical Mercury buyer”. Undoubtedly, that’s why this car was named “Capri”, not that it helped.
I never expected to set foot into a Dodge dealer except to buy a Caravan in 1992. And that applied to great majority of Caravan buyers on the West Coast. No one would have had any reason to go to a Dodge or Plymouth dealer otherwise.
There was a Chevy dealer in very tony Los Gatos (Silicon Valley) when we lived there in ’87-’92 that only sold Suburbans and Corvettes. Seriously. I suppose you could get something else if you really wanted, but his whole inventory was those two. he kept his dealership open with just those two cars. And the average income of those Suburban buyers was sky high.
Frankly, that’s pretty much the case with most domestic dealerships on the West Coast. Folks out here mostly stopped buying domestic sedans (with certain exceptions like the early Taurus) back in the 80s. They stay in business selling trucks, SUVs, etc. Folks will walk into any dealership if there’s something attractive to them there.
I drove the turbocharged manual model from Rose Bay to Bondi Beach and back, a total of 4 miles. It did not wow me. It was cramped and gutless. Too small for a tall guy like me. Took a bit of fiddling to put the roof up and down. OK car for some, but not me.
It was a crying, weeping shame that Ford chose this ridiculous car for those diplomatic tasks. If they’d brought over the Australian Falcons and Fairlanes—as intact as possible, without “Americanizing” them any more than required by regulations—things might’ve been very different. For political reasons (UAW) they couldn’t, and even if that hadn’t been so, doing it might have caused Americans to suddenly twig to exactly how pathetic and outmoded the domestic Foxes and Panthers were.
Given how badly Ford screwed up with the Merkur charade, a sturdy argument might be made that this and that alike were really little more than Ford proving to themselves and to the American buying public that Americans don’t really go for furrin jobs. See also: Cadillac Catera, Saturn Astra.
Even without the UAW, there was plenty of opposition within Ford. They did look at using the Australian Falcon/Fairlane in the US, but there was an “over my dead body” attitude from the Panther platform team. Why it had to be an either/or situation I really don’t know; surely there was scope for it to be a global platform.
Ford Australia imported the American ’96 Taurus, in RHD form. Called it the “Taurus Ghia”. Most Australians rejected it in favour of the local Falcon—comparably sized but more thoughtfully designed, better built, better looking, roomier, better handling, more durable and more dependable.
I do find it interesting that the changes necessary to make the Taurus meet Australian/European/rest-of-world safety standards made the front end somewhat less fugly and fishlike. Bit of a halfaѕѕed job they did of it, though; the new front fascia deleted the front sidemarker lights and reflectors (required only in North America), but they left the rear ones in place.
Oooffff. Still ugly as sin. What was Ford thinking? A nice simple update of the ’92-95 body would have been more than sufficient….
As controversial as this generation was, I’m embarrassed that Ford hit it with the ugly stick for good measure overseas. I actually really like the updated 98-99 Taurii, but this export version was hideous.
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@Dino I donno…I think the bumper-mounted park/turn lamps are quite a lot less pukeworthy than the crosseyed American ones inboard of the headlamps on the Taurus or the stupid ones crammed barely a foot apart in the grille of the Sable. The crudely hacked-in rectangular fog lamps on the Australian car really don’t belong; deleting them and their cutouts entirely, along with the (probably owner-added) chrome wheel arch beading, would clean up most of the mess in my eyes. Still not an attractive car at all, but better than the American-spec unit. And it’s got side turn signal repeaters just behind each front wheel; that’s gotta count for something! 🙂
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@Dave M They exported those, too, as it seems; here’s a piece of evidence—pity it can’t tell us what country it was destined for and which side(s) of the cars the steering wheel was on.
Northgate railway station. Most Capris I see have the top up, regardless of the weather.
I’ve started to wonder, are they stuck in that postion?
My first wife (the lesbian – not that there’s anything wrong with that) wanted a British sports car around 1990. Since I was in charge of maintenance, I wasn’t too excited about it. I was aware of the Miata, so started the conversation in that direction. I was also aware of the Capri and test drove one in Middletown CT. As I recall, it had a bit of the convertible shakes and my reaction was why would anyone buy this when the Miata was available. Plus it was ugly…. The Miata was a go cart with a nice exhaust sound and absolutely no leg room. But it was for her so we got a 1990 Miata and kept it for about 5 years. It was fun, but very tight to sit in for me so I never really bonded with it. The Missus went to Massage school and at least once had her massage table in it (on it?). Not sure how she did that, but I do remember the top was down!
Spotted a red one yesterday before work in Eagle Rock…CC effect strikes again!
It just occurred to me that there’s a remarkable similarity to the Reatta in this Capri.
These were “bait and switch” cars for L-M dealers, to upsell to a Cougar. [or Marquis, yeah right]. No wonder Merkur flopped, btw.
I was looking at a Tracer LTS [Escort GT] around that time and dealer did the hard sell to a Cougar, to get me “into a real car”. Got an SN95 Mustang instead.
This is one of those reposts where, 6 years on, they’re all but gone. Probably been 4-5 years since I last saw one in the junkyard, even. At the same time, there are still plenty of 1st-gen Miata running around.
This was a K-Car convertible 8 years too late for that.
Hard to imagine someone at Mazda getting the least bit excited about working on this when the Miata was birthing in the next room.
When these were being primed for production Ford had advertisements every ad break in radio in Melbourne I was making plumbing fittings in Mentone and seriously considered moving across town to work at Ford in Broadmeadows, suddenly the ads stopped, driving past the factory many new Fords both Falcons and Capris could be seen with huge lemon decals on them parked there by unimpressed buyers who had warranty claims rejected it made the TV news just how bad Falcon quality was and apparently mobile swimmimng pools wasnt what Capri buyers expected. Dearborn seriously thought of closing Ford AU down which led to the fishfaced Taurus coming over to replace the Falcon but by that time Falcon faults had mostly been fixed and the supremely ugly Taurus failed to attract enough buyers.
Being in the rental car business at the time, this was the car we rented out in Florida during these years. I drove many of them across the US. Better than a Cavalier or a Sunbird, but smaller and impractical in comparison. Ford would have been better off it it did an Escort EXP and Mercury LN7 convertible, both based off the Escort.
My problem today is the parts. You cannot get the parts to fix a 30 year old Capri. You cannot get the windshield, or much of the interior. Another problem is that even in tip-top condition, it wasn’t a fun ride. Like the Cavalier and Sunbird convertibles, Capris weren’t sporty or fun. It was just a small convertible.