Ford Capri II 2.0S: on a promise

By Charlie Calderwood

| 24 Apr 2025

Classic & Sports Car – Ford Capri II 2.0S: fulfilling a dream

“P*ss off! And take that bleedin’ ball with ya!”

That’s all the first owner of this 1978 Ford Capri II 2.0S ever said to its now long-time custodian, John Collins.

But those words, shouted at the then 11-year-old Scouser as he inadvertently threatened the brand-new Ford’s gleaming, Regency Green bodywork with his football, have stuck in John’s mind ever since.

Now, more than 40 years after that first interaction, he has completed the restoration of his ‘Jade’, and he finally has the car he always promised himself.

One man’s mission to find, buy and restore his childhood neighbour’s Ford Capri II 2.0S

Growing up in a late-1970s Liverpool that even the proud John admits was dreary, his neighbour’s Capri was a rare glimpse of colour and a crucial source of hope.

The shortlived Capri II (production lasted from 1974 to ’78) is as good a demonstration as any of the power of styling and marketing, which were always Ford’s relative strengths.

Although lacking in mechanical sophistication compared with not only its contemporaries, but also some rivals’ outputs of a decade earlier, the blue-collar Capri’s swooping lines, long bonnet and rakish reputation made it a consistent best-seller with which Brits in particular fell in love.

A beige Austin Maxi might have been more advanced technically, but few 11-year-olds were at risk of coveting passionately one of those.

John Collins coveted his Ford Capri II 2.0S since he was an 11-year old

Once out of the family home, John lost track of the Capri that had captivated him during his early teenage years, and the Ford became his great white whale.

He had asked after it at every opportunity, but this proved fruitless until a chance meeting with some childhood friends on a building site in 1995.

The Capri came up, of course, and it turned out that his old friend had married into the family of the man, Ronnie, who had shouted at him 17 years before.

But he couldn’t still own the Ford Capri, could he?

The Ford Capri’s transmission-tunnel-mounted clock

Remarkably, Ronnie did still have the Ford, but he had also recently passed away at an unfortunately young age.

The Capri was at the same address close to John’s parents’ home, holed up in a garage, and his heart began to flutter at the idea of getting his hands on it.

John knew better than to ask after it so soon after Ronnie’s passing, and it was actually his dad, a man whom he describes as having the gift of the gab, who later opened negotiations.

“Dad had a way about him – an aura of intimacy that people just couldn’t resist,” John explains. “It would invariably result in them telling him their life story.”

‘The plan was to create a concours car, but it was far more tempting to simply take the Ford Capri for a drive whenever John and his dad had a spare moment’

The upshot was that Ronnie’s widow agreed to call when she was ready to sell the car, but even more tantalising was her description of the Ford Capri II 2.0S.

It turned out that John hadn’t been the only person to trigger the protective instincts of the Capri’s original owner: Ronnie’s widow said she had never been out in the car in the 18 years her husband had owned it.

The Ford had only been driven in dry weather, and it had covered a mere 24,000 miles.

The Ford Capri II 2.0S wears the Blue Oval badge proudly on its kickplate

It wasn’t just the exact car John had always lusted after, but it was also one of the best-condition Capri IIs left in the country.

Worthless and mainly rusty, the youngest MkIIs were by that time 17 years old and firmly parked in banger territory.

Six agonising months passed between the rediscovery and the all-important phone call, but eventually John was standing in front of a garage as its door was lifted and the Capri was revealed.

The car’s paintwork gleamed “like an Opal Fruit”, as John puts it in characteristically 20th-century terms, and he handed over £1000 without hesitation, receiving both the car’s keys as well as a huge folder of invoices, old tax discs and service history.

The Ford Capri II’s long bonnet defines its proportions and hints at the performance potential

John remembers getting the car back to his house and sitting in it for the rest of that evening.

The Ford Capri was not without some blemishes, however, despite its limited mileage.

The plan was to improve it that final few percent and create a concours car with the help of his dad – although John admits it was far more tempting to simply take the car for a drive whenever he and his father had a spare moment.

It wasn’t until 2010 that the Ford headed into the family garage and the pair began to strip it down.

When the Ford Capri II 2.0S was restored, the Regency Green paintwork – or Opal Fruit, as John describes it – was the only way to go

Not long after they began, however, John’s father was diagnosed with cancer, which he would fight for the next eight years until his death.

John struggled to work on the car with the same enthusiasm after that tragic loss, and Jade lay undisturbed, in pieces, for an ever-increasing length of time.

When John’s mother finally decided she wanted to sell the family home, in 2022, he was forced to make a decision on the Ford: either finish the restoration, or sell it.

He spent an emotional afternoon in the garage with the Capri and emerged with the will to get it restored professionally.

Although the Ford Capri II 2.0S was sound, extensive body repairs were needed

The Ford Capri II 2.0S was shipped off, its engine and suspension already removed as part of the pair’s earlier work, and a year-long bodywork restoration began.

More rust than expected was found: the shell, including the sills, was still very solid, but both the front arches and rear end had evidence of rushed repairs, the latter clearly caused by a minor accident.

Detail work, such as replating nuts and bolts, and repainting parts underneath, took time, and the exterior was finished in the original Regency Green.

Eventually the mechanicals were refitted – John had already rebuilt the engine before the car was sent away.

Since the restoration, the Ford Capri II’s underside is now as clean as on top

As I meet John, who is seeing the completed car himself for the first time today, he informs me that the ‘S’ stickers on each of its front wings have only just been applied – the finishing touch to the rebuild.

Although he has seen the car close to this point plenty of times already, this will be his first drive of the Ford Capri in 14 years.

Happily, we are blessed with beaming sunlight for our photoshoot, and the green of this Capri really does shine like the artificial colouring of the 1970s-favourite sweets.

As the bright hue contrasts against the black trim of the window frames and vinyl roof, I get a taste of what John must have felt back in 1978.

The Ford Capri II’s ‘S’ stickers were the finishing touch, applied not long before this photoshoot

The car is immaculate inside, outside, throughout the engine bay and underneath.

It’s very rare to unearth a Capri II – now overshadowed by the MkI and MkIII – in this condition today, especially a relatively humble, and so original, 2.0S.

Inside, it is striking just how little the interior changed as the Capri II morphed into the considerably more numerous MkIII: beyond trim changes, it is virtually the same.

The outer bodyshell barely differs in its sheet metal, too – the MkIII was really more of a heavy facelift.

‘The Ford Capri II 2.0S is immaculate inside, outside, throughout the engine bay and underneath’

Like all generations of Capri, the length of the bonnet fools you into thinking this is a much bigger car than it really is.

The cabin is relatively narrow, with a surprisingly high dashboard top.

Unlike higher-specification models, this Ford Capri II’s dash is all black, with only a flash of chromed plastic on the doorcards and the grey seat stripes breaking up the darkness.

“God, it feels so old!” says John with a smile after his first 10-minute spin, “I had forgotten how badly it drives!”

The Ford Capri II 2.0S has a dark, narrow cabin, lifted slightly by the ’70s striping on the seats

Running on Ford Cortina underpinnings, the Capri does indeed feel far older than even its late-’70s vintage suggests.

Along a typical British country road, it dips and dives as it makes progress.

That live rear axle makes hard work of even moderately uneven Tarmac compared to all-independently sprung contemporaries, and the body is thrown laterally whenever the road presents one rear wheel with a different surface from the other.

The unassisted steering is unsportingly slow in its ratio, too, with a little bit of play to boot.

The Ford Capri II 2.0S is a car that feels more special than the sum of its parts – and that’s especially true of John Collins’ bright-green example

What you can’t take away from the Capri is its approachability: it has Ford’s trademark ease of use that’s evident in all of the marque’s British-market cars of the period.

The clutch is light, the gearbox is easy to navigate and the throttle is responsive.

Slightly slow steering guarantees a set-up that never gets too heavy, and it is precise enough for you to place the car with confidence.

There is the impression that the Ford engineers were not too concerned about a slightly rough ride punters would only notice after weeks in the car, but they wouldn’t tolerate a stiff gearshift or weighty steering that would put someone off on a test drive in an instant.

Ford’s 2-litre Pinto engine replaced the V4 for the Capri II, with a punchy 113lb ft of torque

More impressive beyond those basics is the engine.

The all-iron, single-overhead-cam 2-litre Pinto wasn’t high-tech in 1978, but its 100bhp pushes just over a tonne of Capri down the road with decent punch.

It’s not fast like the famed 3-litre Essex V6 models, but it’s appreciably quicker than a late-’70s family car and still entertaining today.

A slightly lumpy, coarse idle does a good impression of half a V8 at rest and is befitting of the long-bonnet looks, while on the road it feels torquey and eager.

It offers everything it has on tap almost straight away and, thanks to the ease of its controls, does so for drivers across all levels of confidence.

The Ford Capri II’s engine is labelled ‘HC’, which stands for high compression – despite a mere 9.2:1

Much like the US Ford Mustang it emulated, this European pony car feels far more special than the sum of its basic parts.

Immaculate as the Capri looks on the road now, John quickly decides the car isn’t finished after all and the rear axle needs repainting.

But after that, its long-term future is uncertain.

“It’s like a member of the family, and it’s lasted longer with me than three marriages,” he says.

Then his voice slows and quietens: “But the kids aren’t interested in it, and there’s no one to leave it to, so I’ll probably sell it while it’s like this, at its very best.”

That seems shocking at first, but John’s real affection for the Capri becomes clear as he rationalises that it would have a better life with someone else: “I’m just so glad I managed to get it to here.”

Images: Max Edleston

Factfiles

Ford Capri II 2.0S

Sold/number built 1974-’78/568,357 (all IIs)
Construction steel monocoque
Engine all-iron, ohv 1993cc ‘four’, single twin-choke Weber carburettor
Max power 100bhp @ 5200rpm
Max torque 113lb ft @ 4000rpm
Transmission four-speed manual, RWD
Suspension: front independent, by MacPherson struts rear live axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs, telescopic dampers; anti-roll bar f/r
Steering rack and pinion
Brakes discs front, drums rear, with servo
Length 14ft 7in (4439mm)
Width 5ft 7in (1698mm)
Height 4ft 4in (1323mm)
Wheelbase 8ft 5in (2563mm)
Weight 2271lb (1030kg)
Mpg 28
0-60mph 10.4 secs
Top speed 106mph
Price new £3077 (1976)
Price now £6-25,000*