Australian American
The car we’re hoisting onto the In the Wild stage today can’t really be caught for one hole. Is it an American, an Australian or maybe even a Japanese? In any case, it is also a Dutchman for almost four years, this Mercury Capri.
Today is fine weather to go out with a convertible with the roof down. Maybe the owner of this Mercury Capri will do the same. Judging by the appearance, the Capri spotted by AutoWeek forum member ‘D oh’ certainly looks ready for it! It looks neat in its red paint, the roof looks fine and we don’t see any crazy damage or rust spots. The Mercury Capri comes from North America, although it did not actually originate there either. After all, it is a third-generation Mercury Capri and that was an Australian Ford Capri rebranded as Mercury. In turn, it borrowed its technical basis from the Mazda 323, while it had to compete with the Mazda MX-5. Are we there yet? The Capri name has had quite a diverse history at Mercury. The first Mercury Capri was the American-market Ford Capri (the ‘ours’, from the 1970s), the second generation was, to put it bluntly, a Mercury version of the ‘Fox Body’ Ford Mustang and then came this creation of Ford Australia.
Mercury Capri.
The common denominator of all Mercury’s Capri: they were models with a sporty disposition. In that respect, this last Mercury Capri was the least spectacular for its time, with its relatively modest engines and front-wheel drive. As mentioned, he shared his basis with the Mazda 323 and also had the 1.6 four-cylinder engine in his nose. You could get it without turbo (100 American horsepower) and with turbo (132 hp). The copy imported in 2019 in the photos has the first. This is more than enough if you mainly want to use it for a nice stroll in the spring sun. Now let the nice weather come!
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl