To a certain set of people on a certain continent, the best low-slung, two-seater, rear-wheel-drive sports car from Ford back in the day wasn't the Mustang, but instead the Ford Capri. All the more interesting because the man who designed it, the late great Philip T. Clarke, also played a hand in designing the Mustang. But what happens when you take the timeless styling of a Mk III Capri and combine it with the internals from a classic third-gen Mustang? Well, thanks to a plucky team called Skogen Racing, we know what this looks like.
From the factory, the Mk III Capri left the factory floor in Cologne, West Germany, sporting a number of different four and six-cylinder engines ranging in size from 1.3 liters to three liters flat. In regards to the three-liter Essex V6, this was an especially large and potent engine for something sold in the European Domestic Market.
But in terms of raw cubic displacement, nothing under the hood of a stock Capri can hold a candle to the 302-cubic inch (5.0-liter) Ford HO (High Output) V8 native to Ford Mustangs and Mercury Capris on the iconic Fox body platform starting in 1982.
These also found their way into various other models like the Lincoln Mark VII, the Ford Thunderbird, and the boutique Panoz Roadster. But we think you'll find the virtues of five liters of American V8 amazingness works with one of Ford of Europe's most famous creations just fine indeed. But, of course, this being a restomod build, this engine couldn't just be shoehorned into its new home completely stock.
So Skogen Racing went about adding aftermarket goodies like a single turbocharger running at 14.5 psi (1 bar) of boost pressure, along with a beefier E303 camshaft with all-new valve springs to handle the considerable horsepower load this new engine had to handle daily. Add it all together, and this Mk III Capri is now jetting an impressive 460 horsepower and a healthy 491 lb-ft (667 Nm) of torque.
For some context, a stock Mk III with a three-liter V6 under the hood could only muster 138 horsepower at 5,000 RPM and 173 lb-ft (235 Nm) of torque at 3,000 RPM. Taking into account the relatively slim curb weight of 2535 lbs (1150 Kg) of the Mk III Capri 3.0, we can only assume the added V8 grunt only adds a little bit to the curb weight on this restomod.
One can only assume that means this Capri is a total screamer in the way a stock one simply never was. Is it enough to take similarly-specked Mustangs from the same era to "gapplebees" every day and twice on Sundays? There's a good chance of that if you ask us. Congrats to Skogen Racing on a job well done.
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