Capri Rebuild Journal

A while ago now (September 1998), I was bought a car.

A 1981 Ford Capri 1.6 Calypso, to be precise.
Cally, as she came to be known, cost the grand total of £295=00, with about 80k on the clock, an M.O.T. and a tax disc lasting some months.
Ah, those early hazy days of learning to drive a rear-wheel drive car. Up to this point, I had pretty much exclusively driving front wheel drive cars, specifically a Citroën 2CV, so you can imagine what a difference Cally was!

Let's face it, 2CV's have 32 bhp (29 bhp second hand....WTF?), do 0-60 mph in around 25-30 seconds, and top out at (officially) 71.5 mph (un-officially, nearer 85 mph).

From the manual, a 1600 cc Calypso produces 73 bhp, 0-60 mph in about 14 seconds, and a top speed of 95 mph.

Now I don't know about you, dear reader, but that felt like one hell of a jump to me. Cally seemed to be the the fastest car I had ever owned (until I got the Camaro). Well, we had our fair share of teething troubles, what with me throwing her off a roundabout and into the central reservation (bloody wet manhole covers!) and her blowing her engine with predictable Ford timing, (100,016 miles and then *BANG*), but she has done me proud. In fact the only reason I got a "big, powerful" car was due to me wanting a '67 Corvette. Well, times (and bank balances) change, and now I have the Capri as my everyday drive, and the Camaro as a toy.

For a while now, I have thought about documenting what I have done to Cally, but you know how it is, you never quite get around to it....
And so here we we are, a journal for the Crappy.

Be warned, at present it is a bit empty, lots of it is still under construction.