Yellow Capri
My wife bought me a Yellow Ford Capri model for Christmas, it wasn't a random choice but a scale replica of one which I owned back in the day.
Late Eighties. Cast your mind back and visualize me in my prime scanning through the local paper at the Car adverts, I spotted the Capri for sale, at a grand sum of £275. A 1600 GT Mk 1 Capri. Banana Yellow with a Black vinyl roof. The car chose me right there and then.
It was somewhere out towards Newark, so not too far. I asked my old man to take me in his 1600 Ford Sierra company car. A staple drive of every businessman back in the day.
Prior to looking at the Capri, my car back catalogue consisted of a Mini 1275 GT, which never made it out of the garage (It was only 50 quid anyway), then a bright green 1 Litre Talbot Sunbeam. (1 Litre. You heard that right)
Not cool at all but super cheap insurance.
When the Sunbeam went to the big scrapyard in the sky, I was left to driving dads Vauxhall Cavalier SRI, which he then swapped for the Ford Sierra.
(Probably good job the Cavalier had gone as I thrashed it all over the place. I was young)
So off to Newark we went to look at the Ford Capri, cash in pocket. It was mid-winter, dark, no torch to check it over, barring the street light. Never buy a car in the dark or rain....
The man wouldn’t budge on the price, even in the dark. After a quick spin in it, the £275 was jumping out my pocket. I was the new, very proud owner.
My dad quickly said that it would be better for him to drive it back without any insurance. With lightning speed in my car, he left me for dead, a Ford Sierra has nothing on a MK 1 Capri.
I loved that Capri, like really loved it, until it started to go wrong obviously.
When I would pick up my girlfriend(now wife) in it, I had to park it on a hill so I could jump-start it downhill.
The death knell came when the rear axle gave up. I had no heart to replace the axle, or more likely I was just broke at the time, so I sold it on for £150 to someone in Mansfield Woodhouse.
My wife bought me the scale model, as it’s always a story that comes out when a few beers deep, about parking on hills and picking up girlfriends.
The model brought back vivid memories of the car. I can still remember the smell of the Twin Weber’s pumping the petrol smell around.
One story was one evening when we were parked in an old garage with a few cars of friends when we were swooped on by the Police. They thought we had drugs or whatever and I couldn’t open the glove box for love nor money. It had a sticky catch but the Police became all excited when it wouldn't open. They found a piece of metal that eventually persuaded it open, but to their disappointment, nothing was inside. Sorry Boys in Blue.
In writing this my memory then clicked in to remember the Number Plate, OAN 272L.
Straight onto the DVLA website to see where the car was nowadays, to my dismay it had not been on the road since 1991, that's around the time that I sold it.
A quick check on Classic Cars and I found a similar one, same colour, and £13000 part restored! Long live the Capri
Footnote - Early Car list
Mini 1275 GT
Talbot Sunbeam
Ford Capri
Opel Manta A
XR3
Vauxhall Chevanne
VW Scirocco Mk1
BMW 318