Let’s say that many years ago your company stopped producing a popular car model in the line-up. Now time has passed, and you want to reintroduce it, using the model’s old name in the hope of using its storied cachet to attract buyers.
Nothing wrong with that in principle, of course, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. Here’s the right way:
The original 1969 Dodge Charger Hemi R/T, a roaring, powerful and dangerous muscle car pushing 375hp:
The relaunched 2010s Dodge Charger (SRT Hellcat), a still-more powerful, even-more dangerous roaring monster pushing a jillion (okay, 700+hp):
The styling may have changed,the engineering improved, but the essence of the beast remained the same.
Now let’s look at the (oh-so very) wrong way to relaunch a brand. From Ford U.K.:
The original 1969 to mid-70s Ford Capri, a sporty, spirited and sexy little two-door number:
The 2025 proposed Ford Capri, a blocky, all-electric (!!!!) SUV (????):
…which retains absolutely nothing of the spirit of the original, and isn’t worthy of even carrying the name.
Someone From Marketing needs to get summoned into a windowless, soundproofed room for a four-hour ball-kicking. (And yes, I’m quite aware that a woke model like this may well have emanated from a womb-bearer, or someone with pretensions thereto. Or a committee — same thing, really.)
And no, I’m not taking bets that this abhorrent abortion of a vehicle is going to fail, abjectly and miserably.
Just wow! And to think I spent all those years railing against the relaunched Charger’s extra set of doors.
We’re only a few years away from all cars being either 4-door sport sedans or SUVs. There will be no other choices.
Isn’t that just a barely reskinned version of the Mustang Mach-E ? Yeah, total fail for both the Capri and the Mustang. A two-for-one deal.
Given enough time and estrogen, all new vehicles are going be some version of a small SUV or CUV, since that’s apparently what women like. What men want is no longer relevant, unless you’re buying a truck and even there they’ve figured out that they can get an extra $20 grand or more over a baseline work truck by glamping up the interior so the wives will insist their husbands get the top trim package instead.
The car my brother’s wife drove when they first got married was one of those Capris.
He referred to it a “crappy”.
Pretty sure that new abomination is way more likely to fit the description.
Could somebody please resurrect Harley Earl ? give him a
pad or two of plain flip chart paper and a box of pencils.
Leave him alone for a couple of days and then just stand back
and admire what a real car designer can dream up.
All of the old names that Ford had to choose from, and they had to use a good one on a bad car.
It is not Stellantis that is teetering on the brink of BQ, but Ford. When you loose over $110K on each and every EV you sell, you’ve got to listen to that guy at the coffee shop that tells you you’re phuqued.
The original Capri was an anemic, gutless wonder but somewhat-nice-looking car for its time and price point. The styling on the new one is atrocious, but I daresay with fresh Duracells installed it will be anything but gutless off the line. If it was a modern petrol engine it would blend in perfectly in the mall car park with every other crossover on the market today. There is nothing distinctive about it in any way.
But the trend to boxy, bulbous vehicles gets my hackles up far more than the asinine push towards Electric Utopia™. To wit, the Toyota Landcruisers made for the U.S. Market, both the old version and the brand new reincarnation, are these massive squared-off and overblown vehicles, compared to the svelte ones offered on a few years before (I’m looking at you Landcruiser 105). Let alone the sleek but boring look of the preveious generation of the unavailable-in-Murica Landcruiser 70 series. That’s one of the nicest looking utilitarian vehicles ever made in modern times. Even its 2024 refresh isn’t a total abomination (although it’s close). Dodge and Ford trucks, are likewise oversized monstrosities stuffed with technotoys of dubious value at Big Brother’s insistence.
I owned and loved a 1973 Capri with the 2600 V6 and four on the floor. It was not a screaming machine, but for its time it was a lot of fun and was even halfway reliable. They need to find another name for this POS battery car. The Mustang clones and Aussie Capri’s were bad enough.