OK, since we're doing "Capris We've Known and Loved", here's mine....
My parents gifted me a brand-new 1969 Dodge Charger R/T S-E for graduation in 1969 in appreciation of making Honor Roll all 4 years, and being an all-around "Good Kid".
In the fall of 1970, when the car was barely over a year old, our insurance company (Allstate) clobbered us by TRIPLING my insurance premium to drive the car. I never had so much as a parking ticket, but they took a dim view of a 19 year old tooling around town in a bonafide Muscle Car.
SO...what to do?
As I was attending the local junior college at the time, and pretty much paying my own way, so something that got better gas mileage, but was still sporty, was in order.
I was averaging around 14~15MPG in the Charger, and gas back then was around THIRTY-EIGHT CENTS a gallon for genuine 100 octane, and I was burning up a whole $7 or $8 a week!
I was earning about $1.95/hr as a part time Electronics Technician, so $8 a week was significant to me.
Mercury had been advertising the Capri as the "Sexy European" for a few months, and my Mom, who I "shared" the car with fell in love with one.
We sold the Charger to one of my former high-school buddies for $2800 (window sticker on it was a shade over $4,000), and found the ONLY Capri available in the local area.
I don't remember what we paid for it, but it was close enough to what we got for the Charger that it didn't bust my budget.
It was a medium metallic silver/blue, with a white interior, a 4-speed, AM radio, and the 1600 "Kent" engine. Nice little car, but woefully underpowered.
I bought a Hooker Header for it from the speed shop, and my friends and I built our own exhaust system with a Corvair "Turbo" muffler. A buddy who worked at a local muffler shop bent up the tubing and welded it all together. The header didn't make much, if any, difference in power, but it sure sounded sweet!
I had some SCCA friends who were doing Formula Ford stuff, and I picked up the two-barrel Weber carb and manifold for like $25, as they were using "better" stuff in FF at the time.
It still didn't make much power (it really needed some more cam), but you could feel the secondary on the little Weber kick in when you floored it, so that was fun.
I wanted better handling, so I ordered front and rear ADDCO sway bars for it. They didn't even come close to fitting, and wound up being sold to a friend who modified them to fit his car. Don't remember what he was driving at the time, but I was happy to sell him the ADDCO bars for about half what I paid for them, so at least I didn't take a complete loss on them.
I drove the Capri my Sophomore year at the local junior college, and had it my Junior and Senior years at the University I went to, but didn't have it on campus much, as it really was my "Mom's Car"!
Eventually put it all back stock after college and sold it to some guy to finance my first Corvette. By this time Mom had "moved up" to a used 1967 Mustang (289 2-bbl, C4 auto trans), and the Capri had been my car.
Fun little car, but dog slow. The kids in the 2000 OHC Pintos would just smoke me!
If they would have brought the Capri in with the 2000 OHC engine as the base engine, I think it would have sold better, and had a better reputation. As it was, the thing was as reliable as an anvil, got GREAT mileage (easy 30MPG on the highway), and was fun to drive.
- Jim
