Cars of Coolhaven

Once famously promoted with the slogan ‘The car you always promised yourself‘, but I don’t recall promising myself a heavily pimped, overstated, orange two-seater European style Ford Capri coupé… Obviously, the current owner of this car is a dedicated Capri driver, and has spend much time and effort in creating a car that is both funny as a little bit disturbing

The Ford Capri always sounded like an interesting car to me, mostly because they are nice, poor man’s muscle cars from an era that I was still too young to look at life-size cars. Those Matchbox thingy’s were way more exciting (you could crash those… ). The Capri is not that common a car in the Netherlands, so it was on my shortlist for several months now. Oh irony, when I finally spot one, it is this overstated orange beast… Oh well, let’s keep an eye open for a ‘normal’ Capri.

The first real Ford Capri was introduced in January 1969 at the Brussels Motor Show, with sales starting the following month. The intention was to reproduce the success of the North American Ford Mustang in Europe, to produce a European pony car. It was mechanically based on the Cortina and built in Europe at the Dagenham and Halewood plants in the UK, the Genk plant in Belgium, and the Saarlouis and Cologne plants in Germany. The car was named Colt during development stage, but Ford were unable to use the name, as it was trademarked by Mitsubishi.

Although a fastback coupe, Ford wanted the Capri MKI to be affordable for a large spectrum of potential buyers. In order to do that, it was available in a variety of engines. It was originally released with a 1300cc 4-cylinder single-carburettor engine with four-speed manual box, but in later models we find crossflow heads, OHC, multiple carburetors, straight-four and V-6 engines with capacities up to 3100cc (and in South Africa you could even order a 4.5 litre V-8!), manual or automatic, and multiple trim and performance options. It was very successful in all types of competition.

Best of all, the purchaser could add items to make their Capri truly a one-of-a-kind, and as one of the advertising slogans suggested, “Make your Capri what you want it to be”. A complete list of options included T-Bar automatic, Vinyl Roof, Long Range Driving Lights, Tinted/Laminated Windscreen, Sports Road Wheels, Full-styled Wheel Covers, Sports Steering Wheel, Nylon-weave Seat Trim, Centre Sports Console – including Electric Clock, Exterior Racing mirrors, Long Range Radio and 165 x 13 radial tyres on 5-inch wide road wheels.