Marcos Ford

Would be a shame to ruin it, though, since I'd want it as a track day car.

I saw one at a sprint at Curborough this year and I'd swear it was held together by its roll cage.

SWMBO had a Gentry. (An automatic 1.8 GTi). I quite miss that car.

Carburettor or FI was available, depending on what trim you chose, right through the model's life. There was a 2.8 Ghia and a 2.8i Ghia, for example, but a GLS was only available as a 2.8i. Manual or Automatic were both available with either FI or Carburettor, although there were some restrictions on what trim could be had with what engine/gearbox combination.The carburettor engine disappeared with the launch of the Mk III Scorpio-type Granada in 1985. The Capri was 2.8 only ever available in the UK with FI, although I suspect this wasn't the case in the rest of Europe, where the 3.0-litre Essex V6 was never available in the Capri.

Think I may be able shed some light on this. Never mentioned in contemporary road tests was the difficulty of equalising the rear brakes; in moments of stress, like a panic stop from almost any speed, there was a tendency for one rear wheel to lock up causing the car to flick sideways. First time I got caught out by this was when travelling - er, rather rapidly - in the outside lane of the M25 when a car in front pulled out of the middle lane to overtake without looking in his mirrors and I had to brake heavily to avoid running into him; the back came out far quicker than my ability to correct (although in fairness to myself I doubt if there enough steering lock available for even Stirling Moss to retrieve the situation) and the result was a somewhat spectacular series of rolls. Police confirmed from inspection of skid marks that one rear wheel had locked up. Second time was at about 20mph in the wet when I nearly overshot the turning I was looking for, braked fairly hard but far from maximum, and the tail snapped out again fortunately without further upset. Third time was when I asked the delivery driver who was collecting the car for servicing to check this specific point - asked him to find a nice straight bit of the A30 and brake hard from about 70mph; he reckoned he ended up two fields away.... The important point is that this could not be blamed on one particular "rogue" car, they happened in three different 'Suds, all bought brand new and serviced strictly according to schedule by a main dealer. Suspect a track day might provide ideal conditions to find out about this problem!

Having said all this, I still rate the AlfaSud ti as one of the best all-round cars I ever had, the other being a Series 3 Jaguar Sovereign.

Geoff MacK

Many thanks to all who responded to my original query. Decision is a 2.8i with 5-speed box as fitted to the last of the "production" Capris. No doubt there will be issues with prop shaft, diff etc but that's a fair way down the line.

Geoff MacK

Good choice IMO. Hmm is there any chance that the 4.0V6 Mustang SOHC (also a Cologne block) would fit? I think it's a better engine than the

Plenty available from scrapped Ford Exploders at the moment. Some owners tend to be a bit too enthusiastic and roll them.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Geoff Mackenzie" saying something like: