Start with what the Mercury Capri is: a 2-door coupe (1970–1974) / 2-door hatchback (1976–1978) with 1.6 L Kent Overhead valve, built from 1970 to 1994, as the oil crises and the first emissions rules rewired the industry. What it meant takes a little longer.
The background
Capri (later Mercury Capri) is a nameplate marketed by the Lincoln-Mercury division of Ford Motor Company over three generations between 1970 and 1994. From 1970 to 1978, the Capri was a sport compact marketed in North America by the Lincoln-Mercury division without any Ford or Mercury divisional branding; it was a captive import, manufactured by Ford of Europe and sold simply as the Capri. From 1979 to 1986, the second generation Capri became part of the Mercury model line as a U.S. built pony car, a badge engineered variant of the contemporary Ford Mustang. Ford Australia produced the third-generation Mercury Capri roadster from 1991 to 1994, which Ford marketed as the Ford Capri outside of North America. In North America, the first and third generations of the Capri were marketed without a direct Ford-brand counterpart but were sold in other markets under the Ford brand.
The name derives from the Italian island of Capri, and has been used by all three Ford divisions. The 1952 Lincoln Capri marked the first use of the nameplate, serving as a trim level through 1959. From 1962 to 1964, Ford of Britain introduced a Ford Consul Capri two-door hardtop coupe. For 1966 and 1967, the Capri name was first used by Mercury to denote the standard trim of the Mercury Comet. For 1968, Ford of Europe developed the Ford Capri two-door coupé as its European counterpart to the Mustang. Like the Mustang, the Capri was styled with a long hood and a short deck, with a fastback-style roofline.
The engineering
The engine is 1.6 L Kent Overhead valve; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. On the scales it comes to 2250 –. Drive goes through a 4-speed Manual transmission / manual / 3-speed Automatic transmission / automatic. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 100.7 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
In the Mercury line-up the Mercury Capri has a clear place: the factory was Cologne. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Suzuki Jimny, the Chevrolet Impala, the American Motors Corporation AMC Gremlin. Its Mercury stablemates include the Mercury Bobcat and the Mercury Comet.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the Mercury Capri — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.