Not A Mustang: Can This Capri Turbo RS Make It To Ford Fest?
You want to know how nice of a guy Dylan McCool is? I’ll give you a little bit of insider baseball on this video. A couple of days after MoParty, he shoots me a text message:
“I wanted to get Briar (his cameraman and assistant) a cheapo Ford he could autocross at Ford Fest. Anything close to you? Looking to spend no more than $2,500.”
Search listings for a beater Ford to kick around the track? Twist my arm. Within minutes we both were digging through the depths of Facebook Marketplace looking for potential winners. The roached ’97 T-bird that was complete but cooked seemed promising, as did a ’74 Mercury Cougar XR-7 and an ’88 Lincoln Mark VII LSC. I even offered up a ’89 Festiva, complete with a pusher as comedy fodder and an ’89 Mustang on Daytons that seemed to nearly win the prize, but at the last second Dylan scored a true beauty.
The Capri doesn’t gear near the love that the Fox Mustang does, but outside of a different nose and minor trim differences, it’s the same thing. Same engine options and all. For ’79, the Capri’s RS package was the equivalent to the Mustang Cobra: lots of looks, the TRX handling package (note those cool-looking tri-bar wheels that you can hardly find tires for) and both engine options. You could still get the 302 in this 1979 example, but this car had the surprisingly more powerful engine option: the turbocharged 2.3L four-cylinder.
Late 1970s turbo technology…four-cylinder…sat for a bit. This should work out just fine. Right?
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