In the 1970s, you could wander into your local Lincoln/Mercury dealer and find a small, sporty automobile that was scaled like a “pony car” (long hood/short deck). But you wouldn’t find any Mercury badging on it. The 1970-78 Capri was a captive import made by Ford of Europe. The car got one styling rework in 1976 and the seller has had two of them for at least 10 years. He/she is getting ready to move and the cars (which are in sort of running condition) aren’t in the plan, so they have to go. Located in Tracy, California, and here on craigslist, you can take the pair home for $1,600. A tip brought to us by Steve Colyvas.
Perhaps the debut of the Ford Maverick in the Spring of 1969 was the inspiration for Mercury to import the Capri, but it had no corresponding competitor in the U.S. FOMOCO family. After bringing over more than a half-million of the little cars through 1978, Mercury changed direction with the nameplate. It became a rebadged Mustang in 1979-86. With the restyling in 1976, the Capri became Capri II and looked like the same car but with some slightly larger dimensions. At that time, an optional 2.8-liter V6 engine was introduced and both of the seller’s vehicles have that motor plus a 4-speed manual transmission.
A little-known fact is that when the Capri was sold in North America, it was the only import that came anywhere close to rivaling the sales volume of the VW Beetle. Both of the seller’s cars are hatchbacks and the colors (and condition) may be the only things that differentiate them, both from 1976. The seller will not separate the Capris, so if you come for one, you’re going to go home with two. The seller has titles for both and — if it’s important to the buyer – neither has been in the CA DMV system for years.
We’re told that everything is there with both cars, so if something is broken on one, you could lift it from the other if you plan to only end up with one Capri. With a fresh battery under the hood and a squirt of starter fluid, the seller says that both machines will fire up. But since they’ve been sitting for a long time, I wouldn’t expect to do anything right away other than drive them on and off of a trailer.
Thanks Russ. Sure would be nice to have a selection of pics, but it’s craigslist– what do you expect. From what I’ve read on this forum, Capris in the UK in reasonable condition bring big bucks. Maybe that is where these will end up.
Aye, ‘cos most of the ones over here rusted away! Never my thing, but that’s a decent price and they look reasonably solid. Ghia wheels on the brown car, too. We had the 3.0 (Essex) V6 in ’70s Capris; the 2.8 (Cologne) only turned up in the later fuel-injected cars.
Hold your breath on that..
Had a ’70 and ’72 Capri; The Sexy European. The ’72 had the V6 and a 4 speed. Very peppy. Both were inclined to present mechanical problems monthly. Wheel cylinders routinely blew out. The alternators ate diodes like candy. I had the alternator on the ’70 (4 cyl.) rebuilt three times. Still, my memories of The Sexy European are mostly fond ones.
My wife’s best friend’s fiancé had a ’76 Capri II. Once they treated us to dinner in July of ’78 and I was somehow (being tall) able to contort myself to fit in the back seat of the Capri II next to my wife with the transmission hump between us. The rear end on that two year-old Capri II really whined; possibly from hauling my extra weight around. The mechanical whine was noticeable the entire time and I mentioned it to the guy but I do not remember his reaction. I still like the pleasing shape of the early Capris before they became Mustang derivatives.
A definite steal. Buy these and swap in 5.0’s.
Back in the late 80’s, I remember a nice 72 Capri with a 351 Cleveland motor that ran at our local dragstrip. Tubbed very nicely. Good looking and ran like gangbusters. At the time, we had a Fairmont Futura with much the same drive train. Miss those days.
These were rare cars. Not because they were poor cars, they just lived in the shadow of the original Capri, that people, like me had a poor taste with. The Capri ll was actually a very nice car. It addressed all the shortcomings of the original, but alas, t’was too late, and Asian imports were a far better deal, and the Capri ll never had a chance. The Capri ll offered a hatchback, better motor, more room, and most important, an automatic, not available on the Mk 1. Capris biggest downfall, was the L-M dealers who, like Opel/Buick, wanted no part of it, and claimed it took sales away from “their” cars. Sadly, the Capri and the Capri ll will fade into history, but were actually at the forefront of the small car revolution, predating “our” rendition, the Pinto. Go figure, hey?
these are trunk cars, not hatchbacks, so they are Capris, not Capri II’s
and before you change your story
and I quote you ” they just lived in the shadow of the original Capri,”
and not everyone shares your obvious disdain for Capris, as thjere are plenty of posts showing people who owned and loved these cars
Look again; these are both hatchback Capri IIs.
my apologies,
Never said I didn’t like them, I had a ’73 and was a poor car. Please, don’t put words in my post to make yourself look better..
Curious, how does one go about hiring a hauler to transport vehicles? Is this costly for 2 vehicles?
Uship .com you can find multiple transporters and they will give you a quote
Obviously depends on distance.
Even shopping around you will pay about 50 cents to a
$ 1/mile, each car.
My local car crushing yard would give him 300 each if he punched holes in the gas tank an drained the oil..an haul them in.
Lol, our local scrap yard will let you drive them in and they will capture the fluids themselves to $300 each
Please explain to the rest of us how flushing a thousand dollars down the toilet (the sixteen hundred dollar asking price plus shipping minus the six hundred dollars you’re quoting) makes anything resembling financial sense).
For some odd reason these are one of my favorite cars. My best bud in high school had one, a canary yellow V6. The seat recline mechanism broke and he happily drove it for weeks by leaning forward at all times. Not easy with a manual trans! He finally fixed it by cramming a tree branch into the mechanism. Looking back, these weren’t very good cars, but at the time for a couple of 17 year Olds, they might just as well have been a Porsche. Would love to have another. Have my tree branch ready to go.
Al Pease, gone now, was a well-known Canadian (Ex-pat Brit) racer of some note. At some point in the ’70s, he built a fast Capri, with independant rear suspension, for his daughter, and told me he tested it on the Toronto section of Highway 401, around 3 or 4 in the morning, and he said it was happy at something around 140 mph, maybe more; I’m not sure of the exact numbers. I’ve hungered for a twin, for decades, but never got there. Wish I had, as I always liked the lines.
I had two in the mid-70’s. A brown ‘72 and a light green ‘73. Both were V6 cars and both were a lot of fun. I sheared off the crank pulley on the ‘72 and after a hasty repair sold it off and bought the ‘73. A high school classmate rear ended the ‘73, totaling it. I’d love to find a clean one of the same vintage. Great cars – a lot of power and great handling.
Fife, you have to shop around, and check out the back-stories, there are some horror tales out there. Two cars, from point to point, would cost less,
each, than shipping just one car.
Martin, I scrapped my Caravan, a few months ago, and got just under C$700 for it, which is quite a bit more than US$300. You are getting shorted.
BTW, when I parked it, it was, by accident, sitting over humped-up ground, in the front of my yard. Here, they make you keep all the wheels & tires, so, when underneath, trying to remove the spare, I found aluminum fuel vapor lines cut with a bolt cutter: someone tried to get the catalytic convertor.
I know this is an old post, but when it comes to shipping cars, most of what people think they know is wrong. you will never deal directly with a carrier, even if the guy calling you says he is a carrier. I was a broker and a carrier and I still brokered out 80% of the jobs and took 80% of my jobs from Central Dispatch because my trucks had fixed routes and i wasn’t going to alter the route to get a customer’s car that was off route. The horror stories that you hear , unless it involves illegal operators on U-Ship, are irrelevant. Anyone you deal with will post your car on Central Dispatch and you will not know which carrier will get it. If you get a horror story after dealing with a particular broker, it probably would have happened with any other as they would have dispatched it to the same carrier. The difference between brokers (they call themselves car transport companies) is simply how much commission they charge (usually, whatever they ask as a “deposit” . I am now a broker but I only do B2B because I can’t compete with unethical brokers who prey on private people who are clueless.
We had a yellow pre-diving board bumper V6 version in our driveway growing up. It sad day when it got traded in on a creamsicle colored Monza before I was old enough to drive it. Driving a bright orange Monza notchback with white interior, white vinyl half roof and wide white body side moulding was not a recipe for getting the hot girls in the passenger seat lol
When you sell as many vars as LM did with the Capri, you will always have horror stories. Law of averages. These cars were built to a price, period. The same way every manufacturer does with small cars. If you read the comments on Barn finds of all the Capri’s they have listed, most are positive. You cannot please everyone, rarely can you please anyone. You should only try and please yourself, and the rest will come. As far as the Capri II goes, in many ways it was a much better car than the original and all of its contemporaries. Unfortunately it never achieved the sales success of its older brother. Even now they don’t command the same money as the MK1. I hope they both will be saved, there are fewer MKII Capri’s left than the MK 1s. In my opinion, they are a fantastic cars that can be made better. There is a robust aftermarket here and around the world. Good luck to the seller and whoever buys it.
I’d read somewhere there were only about 60,000 Mk. 2s brought in. Their downfall had nothing to do with the car, but the rising value of the German Deutschemark. My ’76 Ghia was not much less than a ’76 Cougar.
You are not wrong, however even in Europe the demand for the Capri II was less. The face-lift MK3 changed that to some extent but the world moved on. Hot hatches were the next big thing
..being 6 cyl cars these will move along very nicely……when previous Capris have been on here there has been comment under powered-these def are not
Many cars will fade into history……but here in Europe esp the UK – its an iconic car and I think the fading away will take a whole lot longer than maybe in the US
If these two cars ere here in the UK – they’d be gone already !!
Lovely looking cars. These are cars I remember from when I was a boy. I had a neighbour who had a Mercury Capri. I can’t remember now what colour it was, but I remember them looking like the cars in the pics. I don’t know why more weren’t posted. I’ve always felt that the more pics you can see of a car, the better. Assuming everything on the car works like they should, and all it needs is a good clean up and a repaint, then all you’d need is to get in and drive. I’d pay between $1000 and $5000 depending on condition.
I had a red 76 , two tone black and red interior, factory sunroof, v6 . I loved it