21st May 2016

I received an e-mail a little while ago from Jarrad who came across a scan I've got in the magazine archives. It's a road test of an Oselli tuned Ford Capri, from Cars and Car Conversions, October 1983.

It sounds like a fascinating car. As if a standard big Capri wasn't beefy enough, Oselli saw fit to take the 3.0 V6 to heights only reached by the hardcore race variants of a few years earlier. Jeremy Walton wrote:

"This is the toughest Capri in street fighter trim that I have ever encountered. All you need is Bruce Springsteen's Cadillac Ranch and some muscles to ripple beneath a T-Shirt in order to convince yourself that this choice was smarter than buying a great fat Yank. This is Life In The Fast Lane personified."

Jarrad's Mother was the original owner of this mighty Ford before it ended up undergoing the Oselli transformation. He writes:

My mother was the original owner of this car. It was bought new from Hartford Motors, Seacourt Tower, Oxford. She part exchanged it at Scotts garage, Watlington for an early 2.8i 4 speed. Scotts sold it to Oselli for the 230 conversion.
 
The car was a full spec car as far as I know with sunroof, opening rear quarter window, tinted glass and the radio cassette player. It has the blue check recaro trim and fishnet headrests. It was Cobalt Blue.
 
Early on in its life when only a few months old, it was in Hartfords being serviced and they dented the bonnet. When it came back from the bodyshop, the bonnet was a different colour so my father sent it back to them. It went back and forth many times, eventually with them painting the car from the top of the S stripe up. They also painted the tops of the innerwings under the bonnet as on one of the attemps they over sprayed into the engine bay. I had polished everything under the bonnet and Hartfords replaced the rocker covers etc. I stripped the paint off the top of the radiator and polished the brass top.
 
Oselli sold it to the next owner through an ad in Motoring News (or similar). I met him many years later at a Ford fair but lost touch with him. He was from Yorkshire I think but could be completely wrong. I tracked him down about 8 years ago and he still had the car although it was not in a very good state and was partly stripped for a rebuild. However, again since then I have lost touch with him as he must have moved and do not have any more up to date history.
 
I keep searching the web hoping to come across it again one day as I am a big Ford fan. I still have my first car and RS1600i which I have owned for nearly 30 years. I would love to have this Capri back so if you are able to track it down, please pass on my details to the current owner I would love to get in touch with them.

If anyone has any information about where this car is now I'll be glad to pass it on. E-Mail me if you have any information I can share!