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Introduction

After ten hard years service and 140,000 miles clocked my original Capri was showing signs of old age.  Don't get me wrong she still drives fine and the bodywork is still OK.  But the rust was starting to set in in several places and the interior was wearing thin in places.  I had been thinking of restoring her for quite a while and as you can see from the web pages devoted to her much of the work has indeed been done.  I hope to have her in a good sellable condition by late 2002.

One day in early January 2001, I was driving past a local garage in St. Ives when I noticed a clean looking Capri up for sale.  Allowing my curiosity to get the better of me I went to have a closer look.  The car was D659 DBJ, a diamond white 2litre Laser.  In fact she was identical to the car I owned.  The Capri looked tidy enough although it was obvious that she had had a quick makeover to improve the appearance.

The car had clearly been well looked after by someone who was a member of the Capri Club (the give away was the front Capri Club grille badge).  She had 94,000 on the clock and was fitted with a Lumenition electronic ignition kit.  Another plus was the fact that the car had been waxoyled several times (stamped in the log book) so was rot free in all the important places.  Unfortunately the waxoyl was all over the engine bay making it look a mess.

Underneath the rear leaf springs appeared to be past their sell by date with daylight visible between the leaves.  At least the exhaust was new.

Someone had fitted a cheap Sparkrite alarm to the Capri which was to turn out to be more trouble than it was worth.

The carb had been fitted with a manual choke kit at some point.  The tyres were also larger on this Capri 205 x 60 compared with 185 x 70 on my old Capri.  This gave it quite a meaty look.  The interior was in very good condition with an original Ford radio and unmarked leather steering wheel.  The original gear knob was replaced with leather one and the hand brake gaiter was leather as well.

To my amazement the Capri started quite easily despite the fact I wasn't convinced that the manual choke was working properly.  The engine warmed up OK and wasn't making any strange noises.  On a quick test drive I noticed that the diff was a bit noisy but other than that everything was fine.  The clutch was badly adjusted and very stiff.

By this time I was convinced that buying this Capri was going to be a good idea.  Rather than spend a fortune on restoring my old Capri  - buy a new one in better nick and do that up instead!  Well it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The only thing left was to make the garage an offer.  They wanted £1500 for her but that was just a joke and I told them so.  I offered £900 cash and they accepted after a bit of a discussion about new springs etc.  On reflection even that was a bit high but I'm a sucker for a nice white Capri.

So that was that.  Half an hour later I turned up at home with yet another Capri - to the absolute horror of my wife Pam.

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