All brochure images are from the collection of Hemmings Motor News
The marketers at Ford in Dearborn weren’t underselling their newest European delicacy, when it arrived in America for model year 1970—it really was an attractive, youthful car. It was famously conceived as Europe’s take on the incredibly popular Mustang, and although it would emerge from factories in England and Germany, the lines of the Capri—which was developed as “Project Colt”—were actually penned by American stylist Philip Clark.
Although the Capri and its Mustang inspiration were vastly different, Ford chose to separate them by selling the Capri through Lincoln-Mercury dealerships, with the tag “Imported by Lincoln-Mercury.” And rather than sporting the Ford badging the car wore overseas, it simply read, “CAPRI.”
These first-year cars rolled on 13-inch Rostyle wheels, a four-speed manual gearbox and 1.6-liter, 71-hp four-cylinder engine that allowed an 88.9 MPH top speed.
Today, the first-generation (1970-1974) Capri is rarely seen, although they’ve lost none of their desirability or affordability. The 1976-1977 Capri II that followed was more practical, although the exchange rate made it a tough sell—and the Capri name would be used again in our market on the 1980s Mercury’s Fox-body Mustang derivative and the 1990s imported-from-Australia 2+2 convertible.
For a British perspective on the “bad-boy” Capri, check out the delightful two-part BBC program, The Car’s the Star: Part I; Part II.
Check out the beautifully period images in this eight-page brochure to see where it all began—click below to enlarge.
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