Capri - why are they cool all of a sudden?
Discussion
When I was growing up, Capris were DEEPLY DEEPLY uncool. Even the 3 litre ones that didn't sound half bad. My mate's dad had one in lightish grey-blue and he used it to pull a caravan to the New Forest, and you can't get much worse than that. They were always the English equivalent of the white Camaro in America - i.e. people with shocking taste bought them thinking they looked good and it would show off their perm.
But, now we all seem to be in love with them - why is that exactly? There's regular slobbering on here over Ebay examples or someone's doing one up and everyone says, "awesome car, mate."
What has changed to suddenly make the Capri a car people aspire to? I mean, people with some taste like the PH massif. Is it just because it's older, that it has somehow entered that twilight zone called 'The Classic' where cars, just because they have a bit of chrome, re-enter the arena as Adonis?
I'm not having a go - I'm just wondering at this sea-change. I'm kinda indifferent about them - I admire a well-kept car but Capri just looked like a dated design even when it was new. Well, it did where I grew up anyway.
[dons tin hat and hides in bunker]
But, now we all seem to be in love with them - why is that exactly? There's regular slobbering on here over Ebay examples or someone's doing one up and everyone says, "awesome car, mate."
What has changed to suddenly make the Capri a car people aspire to? I mean, people with some taste like the PH massif. Is it just because it's older, that it has somehow entered that twilight zone called 'The Classic' where cars, just because they have a bit of chrome, re-enter the arena as Adonis?
I'm not having a go - I'm just wondering at this sea-change. I'm kinda indifferent about them - I admire a well-kept car but Capri just looked like a dated design even when it was new. Well, it did where I grew up anyway.
[dons tin hat and hides in bunker]
I think it might relate to the lack of rear wheel drive designs currently available from your mid range motor company. Apart from BMW or some small soft tops (MX5 etc) almost everything is FWD. So all of a sudden something with a V6 RWD and you can pick up for a few pennies has some appeal...
I think there's an identifiable cycle for many cars of that sort. It runs something like this:
1) New, reasonably desirable car comes out. Becomes extremely popular.
2) As car gets older, large supply (due to popularity when new) causes low second-hand prices. Cars get snapped up by whatever the decade's equivalent of a "chav" is.
3) Due to these second-hand purchasers, the car acquires a "tasteless" image, depressing values and thus worsening the problem.
4) Chavs crash, wreck, ruin and otherwise remove from the road examples of the car until they're a very rare sight on the road.
5) People who remember the cars when they were new look at them and think, "Hey, I remember when those were really cool!" Some of these people buy the cars, restore them to original condition, and thus restore the image of the car as a classic rather than a boy-racer special.
You could, arguably, say that E36 BMW coupés are in stage 2 right now - Toyota Supras are in stage 3 (I can't remember the last time I saw an unmolested one), the Vauxhall Calibra is at stage 4, and the Capri has attained stage 5.
Or you could say I'm talking rubbish
1) New, reasonably desirable car comes out. Becomes extremely popular.
2) As car gets older, large supply (due to popularity when new) causes low second-hand prices. Cars get snapped up by whatever the decade's equivalent of a "chav" is.
3) Due to these second-hand purchasers, the car acquires a "tasteless" image, depressing values and thus worsening the problem.
4) Chavs crash, wreck, ruin and otherwise remove from the road examples of the car until they're a very rare sight on the road.
5) People who remember the cars when they were new look at them and think, "Hey, I remember when those were really cool!" Some of these people buy the cars, restore them to original condition, and thus restore the image of the car as a classic rather than a boy-racer special.
You could, arguably, say that E36 BMW coupés are in stage 2 right now - Toyota Supras are in stage 3 (I can't remember the last time I saw an unmolested one), the Vauxhall Calibra is at stage 4, and the Capri has attained stage 5.
Or you could say I'm talking rubbish
I don't eally recall them being uncool, merely incompetent. The 3.0 Capris still commanded respect as raw cars and the 2.8iS gave them a credibility they lacked prior to that but it was an open secret that a Golf GTi would hammer them. What was uncool because it had silly narrow whels and tyres was the 1.6 variant and even the 2.0S was relatively naff because you got the same engine in a Cortina or Sierra so it was only the bigger Capri-only engines that gave them the aura of hairy-chestedness.
If anything was deeply uncool, it was the MGBGT which had dated, really dated 60's styling, some crappy asthmatic 1.8 iron block engine and later got suspended on stilts with a big rubber nose to sell in the US where nobody wanted it either. The 1973 Celica was better.
I think anything RWD is now considered cool as is lairy lift-off oversteer which accounts for the coolness. However you dress it up though, it's still a leaf-sprung Cortina Mk II in a pretty frock. Then again, most classics are bordering on incompetent compared to modern machinery. TAs Evo found, the Merc 450SEL 6.9 lapped barely any quicker than a 1.6 Focus.
So a Capri can be a good car taken in context but like all good cars, you gotta know it's limitations. In a style-free blobby overweight world, it's cool merely for it's style and lack of weight and fun factor, concepts alien to the modern car.
If anything was deeply uncool, it was the MGBGT which had dated, really dated 60's styling, some crappy asthmatic 1.8 iron block engine and later got suspended on stilts with a big rubber nose to sell in the US where nobody wanted it either. The 1973 Celica was better.
I think anything RWD is now considered cool as is lairy lift-off oversteer which accounts for the coolness. However you dress it up though, it's still a leaf-sprung Cortina Mk II in a pretty frock. Then again, most classics are bordering on incompetent compared to modern machinery. TAs Evo found, the Merc 450SEL 6.9 lapped barely any quicker than a 1.6 Focus.
So a Capri can be a good car taken in context but like all good cars, you gotta know it's limitations. In a style-free blobby overweight world, it's cool merely for it's style and lack of weight and fun factor, concepts alien to the modern car.
The "Stuke Intruder", my favourite car ever. 
And for those of you not in the know, after we had removed the final exhaust box (each side) it sounded insane. Nothing, could beat the feeling in those spanish tunnels *drop into 3rd* WOOOOOOOOOORRRBBBBBBB!!!!!!! Getting 125mph on the coast road, going around every roundabout sideways.
ing insane. Better in the desert than a unimog 
And for those of you not in the know, after we had removed the final exhaust box (each side) it sounded insane. Nothing, could beat the feeling in those spanish tunnels *drop into 3rd* WOOOOOOOOOORRRBBBBBBB!!!!!!! Getting 125mph on the coast road, going around every roundabout sideways.
ing insane. Better in the desert than a unimog Edited by love machine on Thursday 16th November 11:49
i had to think about it for a moment but then penny dropped! 
As a car, certainly the MK3's were a more accomplished car but they were heading into 'uncool' by the early 1980s anyway. People wanted smaller, lighter performance saloons like the 205GTi and Golf GTi Mk1 that were still economical and cheap to run. Ford built the Capri as a mini-Mustang with a large number of carry over bits well known for their unburstability like Pinto engines or the Cortina 4-sp gearbox. They must have got something right, they sold over 1 million of them worldwide.
As for why these cars are 'cool' now. I own a once desparately uncool car that's 35 years old now firmly heading for coolness.
It's quite simple really, they look very different, they offer honesty and mechanical simplicity and they are not homogenised lumps of sameness. These cars they have obvious flaws, the oversteer in a Capri can be vicious. However, you realise that if you pushed it too hard you would pay, there was a bit of danger, a bit of responsibility knowing you would come off worst in a crash. 40mph feels a lot faster and 70mph feels like an attempt to break the sound barrier, they are very engaging to drive. The total opposite of ordinary cars today.
Older cars often contain surprises, they do some things very well (better than modern cars) and others very badly. I would like to see some modern cars offer the kind of ride I get in my 35 year old car or the way it tracks a corner 'making progress'. Sure it would be left for dead in a straight line but as most drives are pottering around and mundane, these cars make it feel nothing of the sort.
As for why these cars are 'cool' now. I own a once desparately uncool car that's 35 years old now firmly heading for coolness.
It's quite simple really, they look very different, they offer honesty and mechanical simplicity and they are not homogenised lumps of sameness. These cars they have obvious flaws, the oversteer in a Capri can be vicious. However, you realise that if you pushed it too hard you would pay, there was a bit of danger, a bit of responsibility knowing you would come off worst in a crash. 40mph feels a lot faster and 70mph feels like an attempt to break the sound barrier, they are very engaging to drive. The total opposite of ordinary cars today.
Older cars often contain surprises, they do some things very well (better than modern cars) and others very badly. I would like to see some modern cars offer the kind of ride I get in my 35 year old car or the way it tracks a corner 'making progress'. Sure it would be left for dead in a straight line but as most drives are pottering around and mundane, these cars make it feel nothing of the sort.
Two reasons.
One, stated above, it that they're coming out of their depreciation trough. All cars fall in value in the same way - 50% in the first few years, then this steadily lessens until the curve flattens and, after a few years, starts to pick up again.
Within ten years, a car will lose most of its value. If the bottom of it's depreciation curve is actually beloe zero or not far off (as with the Capri), they get scrapped and, subsequently, rare. After ten years in the wilderness, rarity and a nature removed from modern cars makes them desirable and they are worth money again.
Two, the Capri is actually a great design. Look at that profile - very similar to an E-Type Coupe wouldn't you say, with that long bonnet and curved C-pillar. Driving position is spot-on, no driver aids, great chuckable handling and just enough power for fun. There is no real equivalent nowadays. The only thing close is the Hyundai Coupe and that's much more refined (and FWD, and the V6 has traction control).
It's like music - look at all the new bands around today and you'll see they're name-checking '80s goth, electro and new wave. If they did this in the Britpop era, they'd be laughed off stage.
I reckon cars like the Calibra will come into their own in another ten year's time. People forget that the Calibra was once popular with the sort of people who buy Audi TTs nowadays (and in fact the TT looks like a stunted Calibra). It even won a design award in 1990 - Autocar Best New Design. In ten year's time people will appreciate 4WD, 150mph performance and no traction control, especially when Audi UR-quattros will be pushing £15k.
One, stated above, it that they're coming out of their depreciation trough. All cars fall in value in the same way - 50% in the first few years, then this steadily lessens until the curve flattens and, after a few years, starts to pick up again.
Within ten years, a car will lose most of its value. If the bottom of it's depreciation curve is actually beloe zero or not far off (as with the Capri), they get scrapped and, subsequently, rare. After ten years in the wilderness, rarity and a nature removed from modern cars makes them desirable and they are worth money again.
Two, the Capri is actually a great design. Look at that profile - very similar to an E-Type Coupe wouldn't you say, with that long bonnet and curved C-pillar. Driving position is spot-on, no driver aids, great chuckable handling and just enough power for fun. There is no real equivalent nowadays. The only thing close is the Hyundai Coupe and that's much more refined (and FWD, and the V6 has traction control).
It's like music - look at all the new bands around today and you'll see they're name-checking '80s goth, electro and new wave. If they did this in the Britpop era, they'd be laughed off stage.
I reckon cars like the Calibra will come into their own in another ten year's time. People forget that the Calibra was once popular with the sort of people who buy Audi TTs nowadays (and in fact the TT looks like a stunted Calibra). It even won a design award in 1990 - Autocar Best New Design. In ten year's time people will appreciate 4WD, 150mph performance and no traction control, especially when Audi UR-quattros will be pushing £15k.
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