Ford Consul Capri

It might have looked like a spaceship 

– particularly when compared to Ford UK’s standard issue cars of the time like the Anglia – but this first edition of a Ford car to carry the Capri moniker was as down-to-earth as any Dagenham dustbin.

The Consul Capri was even designed at Dagenham – by Ford artist Colin Neale. And though its drivetrain was constructed at the Essex plant – the rest of its pressed steel curves were wrought at Hailwood.

And what lovely curves they were.

This is the project that was supposed to bridge the Sputnik – obsessed late fifties and push the company’s aesthetic into the decade that swung. As it turned out the rather out-there lines and costs of production meant that when the MK 1 Capri proper emerged at the end of the sixties – it looked much more conventional – having taken its cues from the Mustang rather than various episodes of the Jetsons.

The Consul Capri was, then a bit of a design cul-de-sac – but it certainly set the aspirational tone for the upper end of the Ford UK market.

Rare as hen’s teeth these days – and something over which to ponder.