Today marks the 24th anniversary of my 1986 Mercury Capri coming off the assembly line at Ford's Dearborn plant. 1986 also marked the last year for the Capri and carburetted 2.3L 4 cylinder engines. Why is this car worth keeping? In 1986, only 20,869 Capris were made. Of those, only 1,774 were made in the Shadow Blue Metallic color- most of which were ASC McLaren coupes. The options package on my Capri is what really makes it unique. It has power locks, power windows, a 3 speed automatic, premium sound, a flip-up sunroof, and rear defrost, BUT no air conditioning and only the cloth interior. This options package would have had to have been pieced together, which would have made it very expensive. You could have gotten a decent V6 or base V8 engined car for the price. I have owned the car since July of 2000 and I've done an awful lot to it. When I bought the car, it had an Earl Sheib paint job, smoked a little, and needed a few other repairs. I fully repainted the car while in college and since then have done quite a bit of engine work. The Ford 2.3L OHC engine in it has 221,000 miles on it (From what I suspect. However, there is no 100,000 marker on the odometer so it's hard to say.). I put a rebuilt head from an 89 Mustang on it, the carburetor is a rejetted Motorcraft-Weber 5200 2 barrel from a 77 Pinto, I replaced the camshaft with a roller cam out of a 90 Ranger, the ignition was modified to a Duraspark-MSD hybrid system, I removed the air pump and a bunch of other emissions junk and also reworked most of the vacuum system. My modifications replace a computer controlled 1 barrel Carter carburetor and lots of other old, worn out, pathetic parts. Here's a few pictures of the car today:
