New Ford Capri Set For July Debut

…but don’t get too excited – it’s likely to be an electric crossover

26 Jun 2024

Depending on how old you are, the original Ford Capri is probably a car that you, a parent or a grandparent probably wanted at some point. Europe’s answer to the Mustang, it was a brawny coupe with a range of four-cylinder and V6 engines with a remarkably long production run from 1969 to 1986.

Ford’s gotten into a bit of a habit of slapping its historic sports car names onto cars that won’t necessarily appeal to fans of the originals – see the Mustang Mach E and Puma – and it seems the Capri’s the next to get the treatment.

It’s been rumoured for a while, and spy photographs suggest that the new car will be a fastback electric crossover ‘coupé’. Part of Ford’s tie-up with Volkswagen, it’ll sit on the German brand’s MEB platform and, much like the new Explorer is largely identical to the VW ID.4 underneath, the Capri is expected to effectively be a rebodied ID.5.

That means it’ll likely come with both single-motor rear-wheel drive and dual-motor all-wheel drive versions, with potentially up to 295bhp if it uses the same setup as the ID.5 GTX.

The car’s existence has just been officially acknowledged – sort of – by Ford, via a cryptic teaser campaign based around a fake advert in Classic Car Weekly magazine. The ad, for an imagined restoration business called Comeback Cars, is packed with Capri references. These include the silhouette of the original car and the strapline ‘Get the Car You Always Promised Yourself’, a nod to an advertising slogan for the original car.

The ad ends with the copy “We promise to return your car fast, back from its original glory, EV-ERY time,” pretty much confirming the whole fastback EV thing. It then invites you to WhatsApp the word ‘COMEBACK’ to a phone number (07458 197899, if you fancy giving it a go yourself).

After a slightly contrived ‘conversation,’ you’re sent a close-up image of part of the new car and told that “the legend returns” on 10 July, giving us a full reveal date.

While this new incarnation of the Capri is likely to rile up quite a lot of people, it won’t be the first time the name’s been revived with a very different look: in the 1990s, the name was used for an Australian-built front-wheel drive four-seater convertible.

The first full sentence spoken by an infant Mike was a review of the ride quality of a Volvo 850. It was “Daddy’s car goes bumpy-bump on a bumpy road,” so would probably need proofreading a bit, but it was a start.