Forgotten Car Of The Month, Plagiarism Edition: Ford Capri

Long before the Mercury Capri became a lumpy Miata competitor, or an ersatz Mercury version of the Ford Mustang, the original Capri was one of the first members of a revolutionary new class of cars in the early 1970s–the Super Coupes.

The term Super Coupes was actually a Car & Driver invention that didn’t really catch on, but as a class descriptor, it’s pretty solid. With the early 1970s neutering of muscle cars, a lighter, more efficient, and more agile class of sports coupes beckoned, and most of the manufacturers responded with light, sporty, inexpensive runabouts.

This is not to imply that Super Coupes were supercars. Far from it–it’s admittedly unfair to judge them by today’s standards, but none of the Super Coupes would have a prayer of staying in sight of a clapped-out Kia Spectra5. Consider the fact that a 1972 Car & Driver test of the available Super Coupes included such legendary sporting machines as the Ford Pinto, the Chevy Vega, and the original Toyota Celica, and it’s tempting to chuckle and disregard the class.

At the time, though, Super Coupes were deeply exciting. In an apocalyptic era for performance cars, Super Coupes were tossable and fun, and wouldn’t bleed you dry at the fuel pump. And many, like the Capri, Opel Manta, Mazda RX-3, and Volkswagen Scirocco were extremely good-looking and mechanically interesting.

The Capri was one of the earliest and, to my eyes, the prettiest of the class, boasting classic long-hood-short-deck proportions, Ford-of-Europe chassis and powerplant, and scale-model Mustang looks. Later special editions, one black with gold trim, another with a huge, fanciful body kit, helped drive home the basic attractiveness of the Capri and its very similar offspring, the Capri II.

As mentioned above, the Capri would later become a subservient ugly cousin of the Mustang, but in the 1970s the Capri did at least have its moment in the sun. The Capri II and Mustang II were completely different cars, but of similar dimensions–and the Capri was comprehensively the superior automobile.

The Capri’s importance goes well beyond its crushing of the lowly Mustang II, though. For one thing, it was one of the earliest and best of an influential new class of cars. For another, even after its short stint in America, the Capri went on to ongoing hero car status across the pond, with various high-performance special editions and a sterling motorsports career. The apex was an especially pretty version of the Capri that performed well in the elite German DTM touring car series.

The Super Coupes, and, by extension, the Capri, are not well-remembered, but the legacy lives on. Eventually gas dropped in price, horsepower came creeping back, and enthusiasts had more and better options for their performance dollar. Many of those options were relatively light, agile, vitamin-fortified front- and all-wheel-drive coupes. Sound familiar? The newer, hotter Toyota Celicas, the Honda Prelude, and Acura Integra, the Mitsubishi Eclipse and Eagle Talon, the Subaru SVX, the Mazda MX-6, and the Ford Probe (another short-lived Mustang alternative) could all trace their bloodlines to the original Super Coupes.

[This marks the beginning of FCotM becoming a when-I-write-it rather than I'll-write-it-once-a-month article).