Car enthusiasts love to get angry when a brand reuses an iconic name on a car that isn’t identical to the original, and now you guys have another chance with new ford capri. Where Original Capri was a petrol-powered two-door sports car sold in Europe over three generations from 1968 to 1986, the new Capri is an electric-powered four-door sedan using a Volkswagen platform. Are you ready?
I wasn’t a fan of the new Capri when I first saw the leaked images, but it’s starting to grow on me. The form factor is very similar to the Polestar 2—the Capri looks like a sedan in profile, but it has a raised ride height and body cladding to hide the battery pack, a sloping rear hatch, and a front overhang. At 182.4 inches long, the Capri is a few inches shorter than the Mustang Mach-Eand has approximately the same height and width.
The rounded D-pillars and quarter windows, blacked-out A-pillars, quad-LED headlights and taillights, and black-panel “grille” all recall old Capris, and there are some other interesting details like the Capri name stamped on the front bumper. Ford says “the new all-electric Capri is the car this iconic sports coupe was destined to become. No other family EV has this kind of legacy.” I’m not sure about that, but it has more of a connection than the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross has with the same name.
Alike Ford Explorer EV for Europe onlyCapri is based on VW’s MEB platform. The base rear-wheel-drive model has a 77 kWh battery pack and a single electric motor at the rear wheels that produces 282 horsepower and 402 pound-feet of torque, helping it sprint from zero to 62 mph in a respectable 6.4 seconds. The all-wheel-drive Capri has a 79 kWh battery pack, with an electric motor at each axle producing a total of 335 horsepower and dropping the zero to 62 mph time to 5.3 seconds. (Ford doesn’t give a combined torque figure, only saying the front motor makes 99 lb-ft.)
Ford says the single-motor Capri has a range of 390 miles on the European WLTP cycle, while the dual-motor model will go 368 miles. Charging times are disappointingly slow, however. The rear-wheel-drive Capri can charge at up to 135 kW, good enough to go from 10 to 80 percent in 28 minutes, and the AWD model can charge at up to 185 kW for a 26-minute charge from 10 to 80 percent.
The Capri’s interior looks pretty much identical to the Explorer EV, though the sport seats with integrated headrests and square steering wheel are unique to the Capri. The 14.6-inch center touchscreen slides forward to reveal a lockable storage compartment, and a “MegaConsole” under the front armrest holds more than half a cubic foot of gear. A soundbar sits above the dash, and the driver also gets a 5-inch digital instrument cluster display.
Standard features include a massaging driver’s seat (it seems like the unlucky passenger on that front is out of luck), a heated steering wheel, dual-zone automatic climate control, navigation, and keyless entry. You can get the Capri with a hands-free liftgate, a panoramic sunroof, ambient lighting, a B&O sound system, and more. Tons of driver assistance features are also available, but you’ll have to pay extra for a 360-degree camera, parking assist, and lane-keeping assist.
The Capri will go into production in Cologne, Germany, alongside the Explorer EV, with deliveries expected to begin in a few months. In the UK, the Capri will cost around £5,000 more than the Mustang Mach-E and around £2,000 more than the Explorer EV, which is also similar in size.
