photography: James Lipman

If you’re died in the wool Capri perv you won’t need to be told the following. For you the burly MK1 homologation special will occupy that special place in your psyche representative of all things Ford that float your proletarian boat.

If on the other hand, you’re not particularly of the persuasion, here are the basics, by way of introduction to James Lipman’s lovely images of what must be the most famous Capri to roll off the lines.

The RS2600 was MK1 with a V6 2.6 litre engine. It was a homologation special and so only a round fifty were made — launched at the Swiss motor show in 1970.

It was light. The exterior shell consisted of fibreglass and thin gauge steel. Some of the windows were perspex and apparently even the paint was of a thinner mix to help shave off the ounces. Those distinctive extra flared front arches were an afterthought, included to deal with a wider front track and rubber.

The stripped down nature of the thing meant that it tipped the scales at a little under a metric tonne. It was fuel injected (a first for a production Ford) and they were relatively quick, topping out at a little over 120MPH.

They weren’t around for long because the group they were homologated for soon became a three litre class. You guessed it — enter the RS3100!

There’s loads of other fine, reductive detail that can be gleaned elsewhere, particularly the RS owners club sites etc.

Every little bit of mimicry and simulacra have been attempted, the sum of which has made originals of these cars very desirable, if not infused with a particular kind of Dagenham mysticism.

Whatever your relationship with the Ford brand and all it has represented over the years, we think you’ll agree that this is a pretty attractive-looking car.

When it comes down to it, this is about as close Britain ever came to a full-blown muscle car. It might have only produced the sort of horsepower that you entry level 2011 Golf pumps out, but hey. For a forty two year old, it’s looking sleek and sexy. Middle age can be a beautiful time.

When the first real pics of Land Rover DC100 concept were released last week, there were instant catcalls of its betrayal of Land Rover’s core beliefs.

The truth is that sales of the most down-home Landy on the market and a mainstay of utility stalwarts like military and agricultural clients the world over have been spiralling downward.

With the premium SUV and family wagons market cornered in the Range and the Disco, as well as the Freelander entry level SUV having sold well, the (hugely profitable) Jaguar Land Rover company are looking to update the core.

Sure, it might look like Skoda’s Yeti from the side, and there’s a predictable rounding off, Freelander-ish aspect to the general sketch of the concept.

This release is of course just the first stage of a development that is destined to produce a production replacement for the Defender in 2015, but you can image the sort of thing that will result.

For our money, though, our favourite re-imagined offroader of the last few years has been Toyota’s retro hacker the FJ Cruiser (above). The FJ takes a very appealling reference to the original FJ Landcruisers, and updates the aesthetic for today perfectly.

Not sure if the FJ Cruiser has sold as well as the new Defender would need to, but hey. We’re just offering our humble design-centred opinion.

What do you think?

Sometimes it’s good to have your preconceptions challenged. I was brought up and into car culture through the entertaining and sometimes scurrilous Custom Car magazine of the 1970s (below).

Anyone that remembers that wickedly funny ‘zine will remember that as well as marrying cool modded motors with half-naked ladies Custom Car’s editorial was shot through with unadorned hatred of the Triumph Spitfire.

For some reason, the Spitfire seemed to represent to the editorial staff all that pretentious, gutless and twee about motoring in the 1970s.

And being an impressionable pre-teen in those days heady with the reek of Brut 33 and Long Life and John Player Specials, I carried this unjust hatred of the Spitfire with me deep into adulthood.

But recently we stumbled across a little set of pictures of a Spitfrire on the excellent Asphalt Heritage blog, and we’re looking at the Spitfire afresh.

We’re digging the low-slung lines. We’re admiring the purposeful stance and the peaky rear end. We’re thinking that the Spitfire must have been a fun and accessible way into motoring with a bit of passion.

Whilst in a particularly patriotic mood last week and putting together our Brit theme (this has nothing to do with the football, we should add), we stumbled across the beautiful shots of Hedi Slimane’s 1985 Rolls Royce Corniche.

The renowned fashion designer and photographer shot the car for London based fashion and arts magazine Dazed — and got his mate, LA record producer and artist Beck, to record the engine note. Couldn’t grab the soundtrack, but we wanted to share the pictures with you.

Having had to reverse carefully recently in a beautiful Somerset lane on a beautiful June day to avoid besmirching the latest Rolls,The Ghost we couldn’t help feeling a bit of nationalistic stirring –despite the fact that the company is now, of course, owned by BMW.

Cue Elgar’s swelling strings. Cue lusciously composed images of this Green And Pleasant Land. Cue Capello’s bootcamp boys exiting the World Cup ignominiously against Slovenia. Or not.

Once more unto the breach Engerland.

Now, call us old fashioned, but could it be that the Triumph TR7 was the ugliest automotive creation of these islands? It’s not a particularly rare point of view – legend has it that when the Harris Mann penned design was first shown at the British leyland design meeting way back in the depths of three-day-week, recession wracked Britain of the early 1970s, it was thought to be a spoof. His other design had been, of course, The truly pug-ugly Austin Princess.

The potential for the car was great. Billed as ‘the shape of things to come’ at the time, the angular wedge was driven by a more or less the same two litre engine that appeared in the much loved Leyland stalwart the Dolomite Sprint. What’s more an iconic wedge-haired Joanna Lumley drove one in popular seventies action series The New Avengers (notice the synergy of ‘wedge’). Whatever you think of the design now, the TR7’s rakish modernism must have looked refreshing on the stolid streets of seventies Britain. It sold pretty well in the UK, and was a sales phenomenon in the US.

History, though, hasn’t been kind to its looks.

But in fact, we think you’ll agree that from the perspective of this angle achieved for an ad campaign, that the (Michelotti designed) convertible version actually looked kind of attractive from the raised three quarter.

Or could it be that the true genius of the campaign in question is the placement of the lingerie-clad lady on its wing?