Silhouette Runaway---The Zakspeed Capri Turbo.

The Ford Capri is by no means a unknown car. Back in its day, it was an affordable, stylish coupe, with a spec and trim level for most, or if not all buyers. From rough-n-tough 4-pots to silky-smooth V6s, there was an engine choice for everybody. Though it declined sales-wise quite heavily throughout Europe in its final generation, brought on by the onslaught of Hot Hatches, it was still a desirable car. Hell, that sentiment stands even today.

First Flight

When the Capri first hit the dealers all the way back in 1969, opinion was massively favorable. The aspiration for it was to be a Runaway success like the Mustang was in America, a European ‘Pony car’, per se. And, quite frankly, it did. Based on the Cortina, built in Europe at the Halewood plant in the United Kingdom, the Genk plant in Belgium, and the Saarlouis and Cologne plants in Germany, the car was meant to appeal to a wide spectrum of buyers, in spite of the fastback styling that denoted the owner to be cuts above the rest. This was why engines included the 1.3-Litre Kent 4-pot, the Taunus V4(No, seriously), and soon enough, V6s. In September of 1971, the RS 2600, built by Weslake with their special all alloy cylinder heads, and Krugelfischer Fuel Injection for 150 hp would become the basis for the one used in Group 2-spec vehicle used in the European Touring Car Championship.

Of course when ‘73’s oil crisis struck, the idea of a racing program with the Mk II Capri all went to hell when Cologne in Germany, Ford’s main in-house racing facility had to be closed, but eh…… Moving on!

A Changing World

When Group 5 rolled around in 1970, manufacturers quickly jumped on the incredibly fast bandwagon. And for good reason. The rules were 70’s-and-‘80’s-typically-lax, some of the well-known regs dictating that they had to be based on production cars, but didn’t require that many components to be carried over, plus the lines of the production car had to be maintained over the wheelarches.

Ford wasn’t a stranger to punching well above their weight, after all, their Formula One engines had beaten the substance out of Ferrari in the ‘60’s, and then in 1969, they snatched victory from Ferrari at Le Mans with their hyper-improved(With a little help from the late Carroll Shelby) GT40. Though they didn’t come out with anything new during the midst of the oil crisis, racing teams still operated racing Escorts and Capris, one of these even getting into Ford’s good books: Zakspeed. Having developed their own highly-tuned, Escort RS1600 MkI with a Cosworth BDA-head in cooperation with Ford, they represented the Blue Oval in both the European Touring Car Championship and the national D eutsche R ennsport M eisterschaft(DRM).

The DRM had started out as a pure touring car championship, but for 1977, perhaps after a long night of drinks and then some serious hangovers, they signed the regs off to adapt to those of Group 5.Not only did it prosper, but it even hoovered up more cars than the international series the fourth generation FIA Group 5 rules had been intended for, the World Championship For Makes. Porsche 935s soon waged battles against BMW 320is, Lancia’s brutal Beta Montecarlo against Kremer’s 911 on steroids, the K3, as the ’80s rolled into view.

With Zakspeed happy to run the Mempe-liveried Mk II Group 2 and 5 Escorts, and the Capri Mk III due the next year, Ford wanted the Capri to be ‘in’ on the racing scene——-And at the highest tier possible, Group 5. And so Zakspeed got another deployment request.

‘You know the music. Time to dance!’

With a free brief to create a racer much more of a thoroughbred than the old Escort, Zakspeed team chief Erich Zabowski and Ford Europe Chief Engineer Thomas….Uhh….Ammerschalger(Just try pronouncing THAT in real life!) set to work. The A and C pillars, alongside some of the ancillaries like the Tailights, were some of the things that were carried over to the new machine.Then it was cut up and lowered so much it came up only to the sill of the original car, before an assortment of oversized wings, fenders and bumpers were added, all made of plastic-Kevlar. Otherwise, with a specially-made spaceframe chassis made of aluminium tubes, the whole structure tipped scales at only 70 kilos, even with the roof section and pillars from a donor MkIII welded to the frame.

Ford and Zakspeed opted to run in DRM’s Division 2 with a turbo-charged 4-pot engine. Its cast-iron block was derived from the production ‘Kent’ engine and fitted with the Cosworth developed alloy ‘BDA’ head, with dual overhead camshafts and 4 valves per cylinder. Without taking into account the 1.4x multiplication formula for turbo-charged engines imposed by the FIA, the Zakspeed engine displaced just over 1.4 litres. Equipped with fuel injection and a KKK turbo-charger, the new engine produced around 370 bhp in its first guise, though at first it actually ran two KKK turbos, but then reliability problems plagued it.

Mated to a Getrag-sourced, five-speed gearbox, the compact engine was mounted slightly off-set to the right in the chassis. Much of the Zakspeed Capri’s running gear was derived from the earlier Capri RS3100 racing car also developed by the German team for Ford. Among these tried and trusted components were the front suspension, rear axle and brakes. For an optimal weight balance, the new racer also incorporated the RS3100’s rear-mounted radiators.

The car ran McPherson struts all around, with Bilstein shocks and F1 style isoceles triangle aluminium wishbones, a live rear axle, and twin-cast aluminium Girling brake calipers mounted on vented and perforated discs up front, with single-caliper discs up back.

With the production car’s front radiator grille feeding fresh air to two intercoolers in front of the engine, and enough composites and lightweight materials to denote a pretty darn hefty budget, the whole machine weighed just 790 kilos.

‘Green, and very, very mean!’

Debuting at the Hockenheim DRM round, coincidentally coinciding with with the ‘78 German Grand Prix, in the hands of Hans Meyer it’d prove to be fearsomely fast, except until an engine failure would stop the whole machine. Matter of fact, it happened during the race, after Hans had landed the car in pole position. Reliability issues dogged Heyer twice more before he finally was able to convert the raw pace of the Zakspeed into a victory at the season finale at wherever else, but the Green Hell(Otheriwise called the Nurburgring), having gotten pole position for all four races.

During the following Winter, development continued with an eye on both improved performance and reliability. The result was a power increase to an even more impressive 400 bhp at 9,000 rpm. Zakspeed built a new car for Heyer, with the earlier example being allocated to journalist/racer Harald Ertl. In their first full season there was no stopping the 3 Group 5 Capris with Heyer scoring nine victories in fourteen attempts. Needless to say, this was more than enough for Heyer to win the 2-litre championship, though Klaus Ludwig’s Division 1 935 was still outright winning against them.

New Prospects, More Adaptations

Then, when 1980 rolled around, Zakspeed suddenly thought ‘I know, let’s also enter Division 1!’, the engines first bored out to 1.5-litres and then to 1.7-litres via new aluminium block for the latter, with the wings becoming even more crazy, and a testing of a twin-turbo set-up, though later found to be ineffective. Then, Zakspeed and Ford managed to procure Klaus Ludwig(Manfred Winkelhock was another name they procured, Heyer soon leaving for Lancia), since he’d actually gone to court to break the contract with his old team to join Zakspeed. By the end of it, the 1.7-litre Single-Turbo 4-pot was producing something over 600 hp and now had a top speed of over 180 mph, now 10 whole seconds faster than the old Division 2 cars they started out from.

In the 1980 season, wing sizes were now limited, and so, in an act of either ingeniousness or outright insanity, Zakspeed simply deployed the dark art of ground effect, using full tunnels and side skirts. This was a simple slaughterer of the other competitors in early laps, as the suction effect produced would permit the car to pull away from the rest of the field until the skirts would wear out, diminishing most of the effect. In anycase, the damage was soon done. Protests and controversy raised over Zakspeed’s lightning fast machine would strip Klaus of some valuable points, leaving Porsche to cruelly snag the title from Ford.

Final Sortie

In 1981, Manfred Winklehock took to Division 1 with a LiquiMoly-sponsored car(Shown up above) and left the competition in the dust; Klaus Ludwig switched back to a Würth-sponsored Division 2-spec Capri with the advanced aero fitted and took 11 wins to Winklehock’s six – stealing the overall title.

But by 1982, Group C had replaced the ageing Group 5 as the top dog. Though Division 1 Capri Turbos continued to be raced until the end of 1983, Ford, and later Zakspeed, would turn their focus onto Group C, resulting in the Ford C100 and Zakspeed’s C1/8.

End Of The Line

So, that’s Zakspeed’s Capri Turbo, a low-slung monster machine that continuously evolved to match its situation, punching well above its weight, as its makers were reputed for. With enough wins to its name by the time it was formally retired from active service, it’ll definitely go down as a runaway success.

Anyways, that’s what I’ve come to think, and I think that’s enough. In any case, I’ve got nothing more to add. As per usual, feel free to leave more, or overlooked details, advice, and more(I would love suggestions) down in the comments. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think its time to make an exit, before rioting and pillaging begins right outside my door….

-J.

A Ribbon’s Notes:

[Okay, I’m back! My schedule has cleared up, my exams are done, and now I shall make a full-fledged return until next year! Rake it all in before I Definitely won’t leave again to concentrate on studies next year! Anyways, I’m a famously disorganized person, and thus I started writing……With Halo 3: ODST’s soundtrack entering my ears, thus some quotes from the game are used as headers.

So, the Capri. Big props to Sir GT-R, who suggested that I do the Zakspeed, he’s a great writer, and you should definitely check him out in your free time. Now, I’m kinda shying away from Racers for now, but, with really nothing to cover….I jumped at the chance to write about the Zakspeed. I should get to writing on some other cars though, probably the Ford GT(2005). While I haven’t driven myself into a corner, I may as well go first….

As mentioned, feel free to leave overlooked, or just extra details in the comments, along with advice and others. It helps, actually. Stay tuned for the next, and stay safe, in this chaotic world….

Thanks.
-J.]

Sources:
http://www.speedhunters.com/2013/02/fire-breathing-neck-snapping-the-ultimate-capri/
http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/txt/5246/2/Ford-Zakspeed-Capri.html
Images from Google and/or Speedhunters. Props to both.