Advertised as “The Car You Always Promised Yourself,” the Ford Capri was Ford of Europe’s answer to the Mustang, an affordable sporty coupe offered with a bewildering array of trim packages, options, and powertrain choices. If you were a young British enthusiast in 1969–1970, the one to have — or at least dream of having — was the Capri 3000GT XLR, the closest thing the UK offered to an American muscle car.
The Mk1 Ford Capri was originally built both in the UK (for the European Free Trade Area and certain other export markets) and by Ford of Germany (for the EEC and U.S.). Early British and German versions were quite a bit different, with separate engine offerings and various minor mechanical differences. Not all variations were offered at the same time, and making sense of the lineup at any given point is a task best left to specialist books. (Chris Rees’ Essential Ford Capri is a good start, with Jeremy Walton’s longer, chattier Capri: The Development & Competition History adding various behind-the-scenes details.)
Like the Mustang that inspired it, the Capri was sold as much on image as on actual performance, and if you wanted much of the latter, you had to be prepared to cough up a good deal more than the attractive base price. When the Capri launched in the UK in early 1969, you could buy one for as little as £890 7s 10d (with British purchase tax) — the equivalent of $2,137 USD at that time — but if only if you were willing to settle for extremely sleepy performance and rudimentary equipment. Even adding seat belts or the mostly cosmetic L-pack of the early 1300 pictured below (£15 0s 4d) would push the price over £900, while the XLR pack (a combination of the lesser X-, L-, and R-packs, offered at a discount price) would add £79 12s 10d, so getting out the door for under £1,000 ($2,400 USD) as equipped took considerable restraint.
1970 Ford Capri 1300L, perhaps hiding in shame over its lack of power (just 52 hp in this form!) / Ford Motor Company
Ford recognized that to make the cheaper base cars appealing, it was necessary to offer image leaders with greater performance and more features. At launch in early 1969, the top of the UK line was initially the 1600GT, with the 88 hp Kent engine from the Cortina, followed a month or so later by the 2000GT, which originally used the 2-liter Essex V-4 from the Ford Corsair (not yet the new 2-liter Pinto engine, although that would come later). Not until September 1969 did Ford of England add its real flagship model: the 3000GT, powered by the V-4’s bigger, smoother 3-liter V-6 brother from the Ford Zodiac.
The 2,994 cc Essex V-6 was already a favorite of low-volume British car builders, used in the Reliant Scimitar GTE and assorted kit cars and quasi kit cars like the Gilbern Invader. With 136 hp (allegedly net, but put a pin in that) — and, more importantly, 181 lb-ft of torque — the big V-6 promised to give the relatively lightweight Capri the kind of effortless muscle American sporty cars of this era took for granted.
1970 Ford Capri 3000GT XLR / Lights Cars Action
It does look the business, doesn’t it? The yellow paint of this J-reg (1970) Capri 3000GT catches the eye, of course, but it also has a full array of sporty cues designed to make a contemporary British buyer nod appreciatively, from the styled wheels and black vinyl roof to the sliding sunroof (optional at extra cost, of course). List price for the 3000GT XLR was a mere £1,427 12s 8d, although this example seems to have nearly every option in the catalog, which would have brought the tally to more like £1,700. The pound sterling was fixed at $2.40 USD at this time, so in U.S. terms, this was something between $3,400 and $4,000, a healthy price for a domestic pony car, and a sizable stack of money for contemporary British buyers.
(To add some perspective, when the initial U.S. Capri 1600 debuted in 1970, its starting price was $2,295, rising to $2,395 for 1971, with the 2-liter Pinto engine adding about $50. The first U.S. Capri V-6, introduced in 1972 and powered by the smaller 2,548 cc Cologne V-6, started at $2,821.)
1970 Ford Capri 3000GT XLR cabin with Borg-Warner automatic / Lights Cars Action
It was the same story inside: The materials and quality weren’t much, even at the top end of the Capri range, but it had all the right cues, including full instrumentation, and while the woodgrain was obviously fake, it helped to mitigate the feeling of having fallen into a coal bin, without unduly disrupting the intended sporty ambiance of the otherwise all-black vinyl interior. This car’s console shifter for the Borg-Warner 35 three-speed automatic does give the game away a bit — automatic was never very common on the European Capri, and wasn’t offered at all on most of the smaller engines — but this was after all a V-6, with power and torque to spare.
The 2,994 cc Essex V-6 engine / Lights Cars Action
Er, about that, then. English Ford output ratings of this time were a confusing jumble of gross, net, and DIN (metric net), and sometimes none too credible at that. When the 3-liter Essex V-6 debuted in the Zodiac in 1966, it carried gross ratings of 144 hp and 192.5 lb-ft of torque. As installed in the Mk1 Capri 3000, it claimed, as I mentioned above, 136 net hp and 181 lb-ft of torque, but over the next few years, Ford kept announcing various improvements to its output that tacitly admitted that the previous claims had been overstated. Ford officials later admitted to Jeremy Walton that the actual output of the early 3000GT engine, in stricter DIN terms, was on the order of 121 PS and 165 lb-ft of torque. Still, the much harsher 2-liter Essex V-4 that was second choice at this time could offer only 92.5 PS DIN, and none of the inline fours had over 90 horsepower, so this was still a healthy output for an English Ford of this period.
Early Essex 3.0-liter V-6 / Ford Motor Company
The Essex engines, which had no relationship whatever to the German Taunus V-4 and V-6 except their 60-degree bank angle, were never particularly sporting engines, and their bowl-in-piston (Heron head) combustion chamber design and heavy pistons meant they weren’t terribly smooth either. Ford later made some useful improvements in porting and valve timing that gave the 3-liter Capri something closer to its original advertised output. Early on, however, the best they could do was to revise the oil system so that it could survive a bit of vigorous cornering, something that hadn’t really been envisioned for the Zodiac.
1970 Ford Zodiac Executive / Ford Motor Company
Since the 3-liter V-6 was a heavy lump — at 416 lb dry, it was 79 lb heavier than the 2-liter V-4, and that didn’t include the bigger radiator and other changes that went with it — it made the Capri a 2,400-pound car, with 57 percent of that on the nose. To compensate for the weight and deliver the desired sporting feel, the 3-liter Capri had even stiffer springs than the lesser models, plus 185/70HR13 tires and some tinkering with front suspension alignment settings. This gave the 3000GT a better sense of the straight ahead than its cheaper brothers, but also made it what Autocar called “a pronounced understeerer” that could nonetheless send its lightly loaded tail sliding sideways with disconcerting ease. Just like a big-engine pony car, in other words!
1970 Ford Capri 3000GT XLR / Lights Cars Action
As for for straight-line performance, independent testers found the early Mk1 Capri 3000GT about a second off of Ford’s claimed 9.2-second 0 to 60 mph time; Autocar needed 10.3 seconds, although their 113 mph observed top speed was close to the factory claim. In accelerative terms, the problem with the early 3000GT was not the engine or even getting a good launch — the stiffer suspension helped here, although rear-seat occupants paid dearly for it on rougher surfaces — but that Ford had done nothing with the miserable Zodiac gearbox. European Ford four-speeds in this era were usually excellent, but this adaptation of the sturdier Zodiac/Transit box felt clunky and had a yawning gap between second and third, requiring a 2–3 shift at 55 mph that cost you in 0 to 60 times unless you pushed the big V-6 past its redline. Later in the Mk1 Capri run, the 3000GT and 3000E got better gear ratios, which helped almost as much as the improvements in the engine’s breathing. Still, early customers might have been annoyed to learn that their fully equipped Capri 3000GT flagship was only a bit quicker than the cheaper 2000GT, especially if they respected the 5,700 rpm redline on the tachometer.
Where the the Capri 3000 acquitted itself better was in manners. The V-6 was much smoother than the V-4 or the smaller inline fours, and its torque meant it could use a taller 3.22:1 axle ratio, allowing not only more relaxed cruising, but also respectable fuel economy — on the order of 17 to 18 miles to the U.S. gallon, over 20 mpg Imperial. Of course, the stiff ride meant that the big-engine Capri wasn’t necessarily a great road trip car unless you confined yourself to smooth motorways or accepted a lot of jostling, but this too was squarely in the pony car idiom.
The Capri 3000GT XLR pictured here may be a rather mustard-y yellow, but did it cut the mustard? To a point: It did not (yet) quite deliver all of what it promised, but it looked and sounded the part, and driving one of these would make all the neighborhood kids green with envy. At the end of the day, that was what Ford was selling, and what the original Capri was really all about.
Further Reading
Carshow Classic: 1969 Ford Capri – The European Mustang Ford Always Promised Itself (by Roger Carr)
Curbside Classic: 1969–70 Ford Capri – Golden Attraction (by Rich Baron)
Curbside Outtake: 1972 Ford Capri 1600GT – Understanding the Appeal (by Roger Carr)
Cheap and Cheerful: The European Ford Capri (at Ate Up With Motor)
A Badewanne Taunus and a Mk1 Capri, Uwe Bahnsen week? My Dad always said the Capri was no more than a tarted up Cortina, a bit harsh but fair. It is however worth remembering that during the gestation period of the Capri and even at its launch the motorway network in Britain was far from complete. The opportunities to explore top end performance were far more limited. In that context perhaps the Mk1 Capri makes more sense, a car that looks the part pootling around town on roads with a 30mph speed limit
This is perhaps true, but if I had laid out the better part of £1,700 for this car when it was new, I think I might have had my feelings hurt by how savagely it could be beaten by the cheaper Escort Twin Cam. Granted, the Twin Cam and RS1600 Escorts were much more specialized, but the point remains.
That’s a fair point but Twin Cam and RS Escorts were uncommon, Mexico’s you actually saw more often. Any one of these were better cars than a Capri, current values confirm this. There are plenty of counterfeits on the market now though, of the 10,352 Mexico’s built over 15,000 have survived.
I always liked these, as a small luxury car.
I thought they got the Cologne 2.6 and 2.8 here.
The 3.0 was fitted to the Aerostar Van.
I have no idea why Ford had two V6 engines that basically did the same thing.
I had a 2.8 Ranger and it was gutless but would rev up obcenely.
The 2.9 had oodles more power.
They did. The yellow car is a 1970 UK model; the U.S. got the Cologne engines rather than the Essex because they had lower hydrocarbon emissions. The British Capri Mk3 eventually got the 2.8 as well, but not until 1982.
Not the same engine. This was the 1966-vintage British V-6. The Aerostar got the later 3-liter Vulcan V-6, shared with the Taurus/Sable. By then, the Essex 3.0 was gone from the UK and had been fobbed off on Ford South Africa. The British engine was never sold in the U.S.
Different production lines. Both engines were born before the unification of Ford European operations (and before the UK joined the EEC), and it took Ford quite a while to work out their engine consolidation strategy, which wasn’t completed until the early ’80s.
Fantastic car. One of the best of Ford Europe in the last 50 years.
It’s a shame that today they resurrected it in the form of an SUV and an electric one.
With every passing day I hate the modern world more, they have completely destroyed cars.
They didn’t resurrect it. Resurrected has been the badge, only.
I’m sure they will. They already made the Puma SUV, and now they are going for the Capri.
Everything that Ford Europe makes today is pure garbage, except for the Focus (which they will take out of circulation next year from what they say).
The only thing I would buy from Ford now is a Transit.
The British television show called Minder pays great tribute to the Capri and many other UK makes.
The Capri was also heavily featured on The Professionals.
There’s also a Capri featured in a car chase from an Italian movie titled “La polizia è sconfitta” also known as: Elimination Force or Stunt Squad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgKrZbSzPkw
And a Capri MkII featured in the movie “Brannigan” with John Wayne.
The hapless soul who had his new Capri commandeered by John Wayne’s Lt. Brannigan looks like he could be Richard Hammond’s (of ‘Top Gear’ fame) dad…
“The Mk1 Ford Capri was originally built both in the UK (for the European Free Trade Area and certain other export markets) and in West Germany (for the EEC and U.S.).”
As I heared, the Capri Mk.I also was produced in Ford’s Genk plant in Belgium.
Not that I know of — I thought the German Capri was built in Cologne — but if it was, Belgian-built cars would have been to German spec, since Ford Genk was owned by Ford-Werke.
Belgium – Now I remember, where I picked it up (around 9:55 – 10:00) :
Hmm, I stand corrected. I amended the text.
These cars spawned a very visible subculture, at least in California. I mean imported Capri’s in general, of course not the British 3.0. There was a Capri club in the Bay Area that was one of the first clubs to do track days, along with the Alfa and Shelby (GT350 and other Mustangs mostly, not AC Cobra) clubs. Although hopped-up Datsun 510’s and of course Z’s were already common by then, the Capri 1 and 2 community was very visible … by the late Seventies when the name had already moved over the Fox platform.
Tangentially related to the information in the post… I was having a discussion recently about factory V-4 cars, and I had only come up with two(ish) engines – the Lancia and the German Ford Cologne – the “two(ish)” part is that the Cologne V-4 was also in SAAB.
I’d completely forgotten that the Essex V-4 was a separate thing.
The Capri didnt get the exact engine the Zodiac had close but not quite Ford upped the compression for the Capri, fast cornering is impossible in the MK4 Zephyr Zodiac cars the horrendous understeer prevented that, In NZ all the V6 Fords had the 3.0 after 66 the 2.5 was dumped from the market it was junk new as the warranty claims proved.
A workmate in the powerstation fitters shop had a 3.0 Capri it was in nice condition but it was not fast 106 mph was absolute maximum Andy got out of his on a race track, tail happy? well my brothers 2.0 went into a tree backwards, that was the end of it. Well preserved and original examples do still exist and stupid numbers are asked for them still.
The original Capri 3000GT engines had the same nominal compression as the Mk4 Zodiac version (8.9 to 1), but it did have oiling changes. One of the engineers told Jeremy Walton, “We had to fit new bearings, revise the oil pump pick-up to guard it against surge and baffle the sump before we were happy to see it used in Capri.”
That 4 speed in the V6 MK4s was tough Ford strengthened the gearbox casing over the MK3 model which does warp if the engine is hotted up, which most were.
The 3.0 V6 was a lemon here and 1 day engine swaps were widely advertised, the stock gearbox was suitable for V8s up to a 351 Ford or 350 SBC,
Seeing a stock MK4 without an engine swap is very rare even now.
Capri Mk 4 ? As far as I know there are:
Capri (1968 – 1973), also called Capri Mk I
official designation built
Capri ’69 11/1968 – 08/1972
Capri ’73 09/1972 – 12/1973
Capri (1974 – 1977), also called Capri Mk II
official designation built
Capri II ’74 01/1974 – 05/1976
Capri II ’76 05/1976 – 12/1977
Capri (1978 – 1986), also called Capri Mk III (mostly by enthusiasts)
official designation built
Capri II ’78 01/1978 -12/1986
But what the heck is a Capri Mk IV ?
He wasn’t talking about the Capri, he meant the Zodiac MkIV pictured in the article.
Ah, thank you. It was still early in the morning here when I read/wrote it.
Very enlightening! I had no idea that the British Capris were so different from those we got in North America. I assume Canada got basically the same as the US did. In 1972 I was working on a project for a client in a suburb of Montreal. A guy who worked for the client got a V6 Capri. I had a couple of rides in it was very impressed. It seemed so quick compared to what I was used to. As I remember it was a fairly bright yellow.
I never understood why this wasn’t the basis for the Mustang II here in the US. I was a much better platform.
I thought the Mustang II was based on the Pinto, which we brits claim was based on the Cortina mk1 & mk2, which was also the basis for the Capri. Main difference was the longer wheelbase on the Capri.
The early 3 litres had a bonnet bulge which wasn’t fitted to the smaller engined models until the restyle.
Crossed wires there, I fear: The Pinto was definitely not based on the Mk1 or Mk2 Cortina. it did have some mechanical similarities to the Mk3, but that’s not the same as either being based on the other.
If you had the money, the South African Perana squeezed a Windsor V8 into a Capri, making it quicker than the somewhat bloated early 70s Mustang.