Yahoo News UK’s rarest cars: 1969 Ford Capri Mk1 1600L recalls 50 years since the model was launched
Keith Robertson’s Ford Capri 1600L is one of the finest surviving early Mk1s. The Capri may have used familiar engines and other components, but 50 years ago it resembled neither any other European Ford nor any mass-produced sports car.
Robertson says: “When I am out and about, the immediate reaction is usually ‘What engine size is it?’ as everybody hopes it is a 3.0-litre.”
In reality, the majority of Mk1s would have been powered by the four-cylinder Kent unit displacing 1.3 or 1.6 litres rather than the 3.0 litre Essex engine.
On February 5 in 1969 “The Car You Always Promised Yourself”, as it was famously advertised, finally became available to drivers in the UK – but it was not the first British Ford to carry the Capri badge.
In late 1961, motorists of Thunderbirds tastes but East Cheam incomes were tempted by the Consul Capri, a two-door coupé version of the Classic saloon and boasting styling best described as “late-period Teddy Boy”.
However, it did not prove especially popular, and it was the success of the Mustang muscle car in the US that inspired Ford of Britain at Dagenham to initiate Project Colt in late 1964.
Three years later, Ford revived the Capri badge because Mitsubishi owned the rights to the Colt name, and the rear side windows gained their distinctive “hockey” shape.
UK production commenced in Halewood (it was also produced at Cologne in Germany, with different engines) in November 1968, and the Capri officially debuted at the Brussels motor show on January 24, 1969.
In London, the press was invited to a ball at the Hilton Hotel hosted by David Frost and Graham Hill, while the sales gimmicks encompassed ties, cufflinks, aftershave and even Polly Peck’s Capri Collection fashion range.
Meanwhile, dealers were issued with the Pre-Introduction Guide, for nothing was to be left to chance for the launch of a car that had cost £20 million to develop.
Kevin Folds of the Capri Mk1 Owners’ Club remarks that this tome instructed on “everything, including how to dress their showrooms”. The Guide also promised that “to promote the Capri, we’ve hired and trained 12 lovely young ladies who will be known as ‘The Capri Girls’”.
Sales outlets would often recruit their own PR models, or use their office staff members, and acquire the uniform’s beret, mini skirt of “orange fur” and yellow sashes from Ford for just £7 12s. The Capri Girls were also instructed to wear sunglasses so “to add a little Mediterranean style and glamour” to the coffee mornings and showroom parties they would host.
Such ideas now appear to hail from a nightmare world of Simon Dee meets Department S but to motorists trapped in the provinces where the 1960s had only recently commenced, this PR was a form of “Swinging London”.
To further reassure middle-aged male drivers that here was a coupé that would quite probably make them instantly appealing to the opposite gender, Ford commissioned a short film extolling the new car’s headturning abilities.
The cars looked superb, even if the voiceover king Patrick Allen was given a script that made Carry On Camping appear understated by comparison.
To ensure the widest possible appeal, the Capri was initially available with two engines – a 1.3- and a 1.6-litre – plus GT performance options and L, X and R custom packs; Ford’s 2.0-litre V4 plant was available in March 1969.
Ford claimed “The Capri is a very sumptuous motor car” but to place an order for a base model was to face social death. The L specification gained you extra brightwork, a locking fuel filler and (fake) extractor vents on the rear wings, while the X fittings included reclining front seats, a folding rear armrest and reversing lights.
The GT’s increased power and six-dial facia could be enhanced by the R package’s Ro-Style wheels, a black bonnet and auxiliary lamps.
By September 1969 the Capri was available with the Essex 3.0-litre V6 engine – ideal for the successful pub landlord or the up-and-coming estate agent. The extensive line-up of 26 versions was a result of Ford’s research which identified 17 potential competitors, from the Sunbeam Stiletto to the Rover 2000.
However, the sales teams were informed that the Capri essentially had no rivals which, regarding the British car industry at least, was not much of an exaggeration. It was the local equivalent to the Mustang – albeit within reach of the average motorist – and even if you could only run to £890 7s 6d for the basic 1300, you could still dream of being Croydon’s answer to Steve McQueen.
The Mk2 arrived in early 1974. Robertson came by his 1969 Mk1 in 2003 “when I was looking for a Mk3 as I was doing up a 3.0-litre Ghia at that time”. However, on encountering a Capri which looked “just like in the one in the brochures”, he was almost instantly overwhelmed.
Since then, it “hasn’t had a full rebuild over the years but I have carried out such jobs as some welding. It was also totally resprayed in 2013”.
Such a 1600L would have originally cost £951 2s 1d plus £19 11s 9d for the “sports road wheels”, and the interior also features a GT-style centre console. The first custodian of SCV 387G lived in Cornwall but the car still conveys an air of a 1969-vintage sales representative speeding down the A3 to that vital business meeting at the Guildford branch of the Golden Egg.
The Mk1 Capri will forever be associated with side-burned motorists who used a gallon of Hai Karate aftershave every week – and it is also a car that created and then defined an entire sector of the British car market.
When Autocar tested a 1600 GT, they found it attracted interest “from ordinary family men who had always yearned for a sports car” and praised how “it does things with apparent effort much better than lots of so-called modern sports cars”.
When driving the Capri, Robertson often finds that it is regarded with immense respect, with heads inevitably turning. The most extreme reaction occurred in 2018 when “a drunk chap in Hastings actually bowed to it.”
Studying the magnificence that is the 1969 Fern Green 1600L, that seems a wholly understandable reaction.
With thanks to Keith Robertson and Kevin Folds of the Capri Mk1 Owners’ Club. The club will be appearing at the London Classic Car Show in February.
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