1985 Mercury Capri: The Year Roush's Capris Won Twelve of Fifteen

The 1985 Trans-Am season opened on April 21 at Firebird Raceway in Chandler, Arizona, and it opened with two Mercury Capris in front. The series' own history records a one-two finish for Roush Protofab: Willy T. Ribbs in the No. 3 Motorcraft Capri won the 67-lap, 102-mile race by 19.55 seconds over teammate Wally Dallenbach Jr. Tom Gloy's No. 7 Seven-Eleven Capri led early before giving way to Ribbs, and Chris Kneifel finished fourth in another Roush Motorcraft Capri. For a nameplate that sold as a restyled Mustang, it was an emphatic start.¹

The rest of the year followed the same pattern. According to Trans-Am's history, the Roush pair won 12 of the 15 races. The season results list confirms the split: Ribbs won seven, at Firebird, Sears Point, Summit Point, Brainerd, Road America, Trois-Rivieres and St. Petersburg, and Dallenbach won five, at Portland, Mid-Ohio, Watkins Glen, Mosport and St. Louis. Only three races escaped the Capris. Elliott Forbes-Robinson won Detroit and the second Sears Point race in a Buick Somerset, and Paul Miller won Lime Rock in a Porsche Carrera.^1,2

More wins did not produce the championship. Dallenbach finished with 228 points to Ribbs's 212, with Gloy third on 170, according to the season standings. The Trans-Am Hall of Fame says Roush brought Dallenbach into the Protofab stable for 1985, where he won five races and the title, and that at 22 he became what was then the youngest champion in the series. Classic Industries' Capri history names the same result from the Mercury side: Dallenbach, driving a Capri 5.0L for Roush, won the 1985 Trans-Am championship.^2,3,4

The road car those racers represented was a close relative of the Mustang. Conceptcarz calls the 1985 Capri a clone of its Ford sibling, set apart by its own grille and horizontal louvers behind the quarter windows. Its most distinctive feature dated from 1983, when Mercury redesigned the hatch around a large compound-curve “bubble-back” rear window, a change recorded by both Classic Industries and Wikipedia. Classic Industries adds that the Capri used the same drivetrains as the Mustang, from four-cylinder to V8, with manual and automatic transmissions.^5,4,6

Mercury's own brochure, form P-3720 printed in July 1984, shows the showroom side of that lineup as two models, the Capri GS and the Capri RS. The GS came standard with a 2.3-liter one-barrel overhead-cam four and a four-speed manual. It could be ordered with a three-speed SelectShift automatic, or with a 3.8-liter fuel-injected V6 that came paired with that automatic. The RS came standard with the 5.0-liter High-Output four-barrel V-8 and a five-speed manual overdrive. A fuel-injected 5.0 with a four-speed Automatic Overdrive was optional on both, and the chart marks the V6 and the four as unavailable on the RS.

The brochure rates the RS engine at 210 horsepower at 4800 rpm, footnoted as based on SAE J1349, and says it yellow-lines at 5200 rpm and red-lines at 5800. Conceptcarz's specification table gives the same 210 horsepower at 4400 rpm with 270 lb-ft at 3200, and lists 88 horsepower for the four and 120 for the V6. FordMuscle says the fuel-injected automatic cars were rated at 180. The brochure also says the RS can go from zero to 50 mph in under six seconds, a claim printed without test conditions. All of these are published ratings, and no period road test of a 1985 Capri was found to set beside them.^7,8

The brochure's equipment lists show how the RS differed from a GS with the same engine. Standard on the RS were the Handling Package with Nitra-Cushion suspension, quicker-ratio power steering, nitrogen gas-pressurized shocks with Quadra-shock rear suspension, cast-aluminum wheels with P225/60VR15 tires, a front air dam with fog lamps, a sport three-oval steering wheel, a sport-tuned exhaust with bright dual tail pipe extensions, and articulated sport seats. A GS buyer could order a TR Performance Package instead, with Michelin TRX tires, cast-aluminum wheels and the same handling hardware. The brochure lists the P205/70R14 tire as a GS option only, which does not match conceptcarz's pairing of that tire with the 210-horsepower V-8.⁵

The brochure prints twelve exterior colors for the GS: Black, Oxford White, Silver Metallic, Medium Charcoal Metallic, Dark Slate Metallic, Sand Beige, Dark Sable Metallic, Dark Sage, Light Regatta Blue Metallic, Midnight Blue Metallic, Bright Red and Medium Canyon Red Metallic. The RS was limited to six of them: Black, Oxford White, Silver Metallic, Medium Charcoal Metallic, Bright Red and Medium Canyon Red Metallic. Interiors followed the same split, with Charcoal, Sand Beige, Regatta Blue and Canyon Red for the GS and only Charcoal and Sand Beige for the RS. No paint or trim codes are printed, and no source read gives how many cars left the factory in any color.

Prices are the weak point of the record. The brochure prints none, and the only prices in a primary source come from a Lincoln-Mercury mailer for the GS with the 2.3 engine. It offers a Special Value Fuel Efficiency Equipment Package of power door locks at $177, Polycast wheels at $178, the Premium Sound System at $138 and speed control at $176, a $669.00 value it lists at $0.00 to the buyer. Conceptcarz does publish a base price and an RS price for 1985, but they are not used here: this site withdrew a lineage of price figures of that kind on September 24, and those numbers appear to belong to it.⁵

Above the RS stood a car Mercury did not build itself. From 1984 through 1986, according to Classic Industries, the American Sunroof Company converted Capri hatchbacks into convertibles and coupes. Wikipedia describes the process: donor cars were shipped from Ford's assembly lines to ASC, where the roofs were removed, box-section subframe connectors were added, fiberglass rear body panels were fitted and the windshield was angled back two degrees. McLaren Performance Technologies supplied springs, Tokico gas shocks, heavier sway bars and mesh wheels.^4,6

How many were built is harder to say. Classic Industries describes a 1985 ASC McLaren convertible as one of 257 built, and gives program totals of 290 coupes and 557 convertibles for 1984 through 1986. Conceptcarz reports 552 ASC McLaren Capris for 1985 alone, and Wikipedia's production table gives 874 Capris across all three years. The 552 and 257 figures do not reconcile, and neither do the three-year totals of 847 and 874. All the counts are for a dealer-sold conversion, not a Mercury factory model, and none is adopted here as the definitive figure.^4,9,6

Classic Industries also describes an ASC McLaren performance coupe fitted with Ford Motorsport's B303 camshaft, which it says gave the 5.0 more horsepower and torque than stock and could reach 60 mph in under six seconds. No rating or tested car accompanies the claim, so it stays a description, not a measurement. It still shows where the Capri's image was pointed in 1985: a Mercury hatchback that could be ordered as a four-cylinder commuter, a 210-horsepower RS, or a convertible conversion.⁴

The rarest 1985 Capri connected the road car to a race weekend. Classic Industries reports that just 50 Mercury Capri Motorsport Pace Cars were built for the Detroit Grand Prix, each with the 5.0-liter V-8 and a five-speed manual. FordMuscle tells a messier story: 54 cars associated with the program, 53 ordered plus a prototype, and only 41 converted, seven of them with the fuel-injected automatic. It describes white and silver cars with gray or red interiors, headlight and taillight covers, side skirts, a rear wing and a decal package. FordMuscle also says dealers marked the cars up about $1,400 over sticker. Detroit was also a Trans-Am round, held on June 22, and one of the three races a Capri did not win.^4,8,2

The brochure's dimensions describe one car for both models: a 100.5-inch wheelbase, 179.3 inches long, 69.1 wide and 52.1 high, with a 37.4-foot turning diameter and a 15.4-gallon fuel tank. Cargo volume is 32.5 cubic feet with the low-back front seats and the rear seat folded, and front head room drops an inch with the optional moonroof. Curb weight is printed as 2872 pounds for 49 states. Conceptcarz gives 2615 pounds for the same year, and no source read says why the two differ, so both stay on the record.⁷

The racing success did not keep the Capri in the lineup. Wikipedia records that the second-generation Capri was produced through the 1986 model year, and that for 1987, when the Mustang received a mid-cycle update that lasted to 1993, Mercury withdrew the Capri. Classic Industries puts the last ASC McLaren season at 194 convertibles and 115 coupes in 1986. The Mustang continued as Ford's V8 pony car, and Mercury left the segment after 1986.^6,4

That makes 1985 the Capri's high point on the track and one of its last years in the showroom. Roush's Capris won 12 of 15 races, and Dallenbach and Ribbs finished first and second in the drivers' points. In the showroom the same name covered an 88-horsepower four, a 120-horsepower V6 and a 210-horsepower 5.0, a GS with a $669 equipment package listed at no cost, a convertible conversion, and a pace-car edition whose count nobody agrees on. The sources found do not give how many 1985 Capris were built in all, and a forum post that relays Ford figures could not be cited, so the year's biggest production question is still unanswered.^1,2,4,8