I must say the designs certainly are getting closer and closer to what could actually be the Capri Mk4. This is prob one of the better designs to date. With some tweaks to the front and rear lights I just wonder if this concept of a Mk4 will ever come about.
Now I personally am happy for Ford to leave the Capri alone with the Mk1, 2 and 3 ( 2 facelift ) but if Ford in their wisdom do decide to go with a 'new' Capri then maybe this design with some tweaks as said could become a reality. But having said this how many times has a new Capri been rumoured only for nothing to come of it ?
All the best
Nick
I was born a Fordoholic, They'll bury me a Fordoholic...
Not bad at all Nick
I could live with the rear Vauxhall Firenza style lights But the front something, needs to be done with lights....Maybe it's the way the bonnet sits lower in the middle that causes it But could live with it if I had to.......
The great problem with bringing out another 'Capri' is that the whole ethos and point doesn't exist anymore. It was a child of it's time, like the Raleigh Chopper, Starsky & Hutch, you name it, the world is not waiting for it anymore. No longer is it the car you always promised, etc. Some cars have been revived yes, and they sell. But have you noticed they are mainly driven by women (Mini, Fiat 500, Beetle)? Not sure if they are aimed that way. But anyway I don't think I would like to see another, thankfully Ford do not seem keen on repeating old names, so the legend may just remain.
pbar wrote:The great problem with bringing out another 'Capri' is that the whole ethos and point doesn't exist anymore. It was a child of it's time, like the Raleigh Chopper, Starsky & Hutch, you name it, the world is not waiting for it anymore. No longer is it the car you always promised, etc. Some cars have been revived yes, and they sell. But have you noticed they are mainly driven by women (Mini, Fiat 500, Beetle)? Not sure if they are aimed that way. But anyway I don't think I would like to see another, thankfully Ford do not seem keen on repeating old names, so the legend may just remain.
The Capri's we know and love will never be made again. Anything else won't be right and should not have the Capri name imo.....
The above car is nice enough, but call it something else and let the person that wants it decide if they want it to resemble the past.
The new Mustangs are nice, but the original will never be beaten either.
andyd wrote:
The Capri's we know and love will never be made again. Anything else won't be right and should not have the Capri name imo.....
Correct, I'm with you on that Andy. Also, that new thing won't be the people's car which the Capri was aimed at and became. It will become a class status.
I think the Capri as a product did live on after the actual Capri, it just wasn't called a Capri.
The two door mid sized "sports" coupe market died off in Western Europe in the 1980s with the rise of the hot hatch.
When you look at Mk3 production (mk2 facelift as correctly identified by Nick), the last few years were almost all (if not all) right hand drive for the UK market, which was an anomalous outpost of coupe sales in a world otherwise moving towards hot hatches.
The market position of the Capri was formally replaced with the Sierra XR4 in the mid 1980s.
An attempt at a genuine coupe was made later when Ford introduced the Probe in the early 1990s at the same time Vauxhall/GM launched the Calibra, but these failed to re-ignite the "family coupe" market segment. Either it's because these cars weren't good enough, or it's because everyone were satisfied with their GTis.
Then after that the Cougar was launched in what, 1998? and that was moderately successful but again didn't last very long.
I reckon the real son-of-Capri was the Ford Puma. It was popular, it was good, and it looked a bit Capri-ish in its side profile.
While the larger coupe never really caught one, the small Fiesta based Puma did well in it's day.
Maybe that's where the focus should be now?
Well I love it. Iv seen this picture a few years ago though.
Personally If I imagined a Capri rolling off the production line today it would look exactly like that. But Maybe with a slight tweak to the rear as already mentioned.
I hope it does go ahead. would be nice if they went back to an engine with an actual cable for the throttle, maybe some carbs on a v6. No abs or traction control. LSD and RWD
I KNOW MY CAR IS OLDER THAN ME......WHATS YOUR POINT???
Cant see it ever happening as there as there is no market for it, as all the capri was/is. Is a copy of the American ford Mustang, but with puny engines, available in both right and left hand drive for the European market, Now unlike when the capri was king you don't have to import a left hand drive mustang and do all the import stuff, you can go to a Ford dealer and buy a brand new in right hand drive Ford Mustang with a stonking great motor, why o why would you buy a inferior sibling because they call it capri, all it would be is modern car with a old name as they finished 31 years ago.
mike
I do like that Mk4 design, it would be nice to see those driving around if that could ever happen.
Agree the Puma was the nearest to the Capri's affordable coupe ethos there has been in recent years, but as others have said it would have been of more interest had it been rwd.
I understand whats been said about the high availability of the Mustang potentially leaving no space for a resurrected Capri but equally we seem to be in an age where manufacturers are expanding model ranges to cover every possible market, sometimes with fully with overlapping model ranges. Whereas tooling used to be so expensive and difficult to change that manufacturers were constrained to keep the choice of body styles to a bare minimum that has gone out of the window these days, as witnessed by the bewildering array of different Mercedes and BMW models and body styles. The main cost now appears to be in producing a basic workable design and Im presuming the work of actually developing from this into saloon, hatch, estate and convertible variants of that car are less expensive. Presumably this also applies when making a very slightly larger or smaller version of the same car so long as it still shares the same underpinnings and uses a large proportion of the same parts. So really it would not be difficult for Ford to use the Mustang platform to produce a credible looking rwd Capri at a slightly lower price point which would tick most of the boxes.
Personally though I wished Ford would do with the Capri what MG/Rover did when they resurrected the MGB for a short while in the form of the MGRV8. That had an almost unmodified MGB body with modern brakes, suspension, a few more creature comforts and for it's time a best of breed engine. Unfortunately it was too expensive to sell in large numbers but was regarded as sufficiently close to be an honest development stage in the marque's history so could never be criticised for just trying to cash in on an old name.
) but if Ford in their wisdom do decide to go with a 'new' Capri then maybe this design with some tweaks as said could become a reality. But having said this how many times has a new Capri been rumoured only for nothing to come of it ?
But could live with it if I had to.......
