You may think your car is slightly weird, especially if you have a Nissan Juke, really the Nissan Joke, or a Kia Soul, short for Kia Soulless. However, there’s a little Australian made, Japanese running gear, American company owned car that I’d like you to meet, the Mercury Capri. No, not the Mustang Capri, or the European Capri, the little known 3rd generation Capri. Made from 1991-1994, it was Ford’s answer to the Mazda Miata. Unlike the Miata, it’s full of quirks and “features.”. In this review, I will cover the interior, the exterior, and the driving experience. Without further adieu, the Mercury Capri.

We’ll start with the interior, where the Capri screams 90s econocar. Plastic thrown everywhere, dash pieces randomly rattling, and silly chimes. Yes, you read right, the chimes the car makes. The key in ignition chime, and the power on sound are the same sound, being a high pitched tone, which drives anyone within a 10 foot radius of it insane. However, the ACC position sound is more like a microwave’s, “Foods Ready!” beep. Interestingly, you can make both chimes sound at one time, by opening the door and the key being in the ACC position. Another thing that needs to be mentioned is the font of the letters and numbers on the dash and gauges. It’s like a late 80s retro-futuristic font. On the subject of dash things. Let me speak to you about the key button. It’s a button under the steering column, and you have to push it to remove the key. I have no idea why this is a thing, but for some reason, it is.

Moving on from the interior, let’s talk locks. The Capri has two keys for all the locks on the car, which is double what you get with a new car, which means double the value of the car! However, it gets weirder than that, as the door locks shares its key with the ignition. However to access the trunk, or open the convertible top cover, you use the other key. Speaking of the trunk, the key is the only way to access the trunk, which is a bit annoying if you want to leave your car running and access your trunk. I mentioned that the car has a convertible top, so how does that work?

The first step to raising the convertible top is unlocking and pulling on the latch, while simultaneously pulling on the top cover. Once that’s completed, you pull the top out of the compartment, and rest it on the windshield. After that, push the top cover down, and hook the lip of the window piece on the cover’s lip. Once completed, you use the two latches on the top to hook onto the windshield. Be careful when doing this, as sometimes the mechanism will suddenly jerk forward, throwing you off balance, and onto the ground with surprising force. To raise the top, simply undo the latches, unhook the window piece, open the cover, and drop the top in. However, you could skip the soft top, and install the hard top, with just a few bolts. This has the added benefit of a dome light, but still leaks due to the poor window seal design of the car. Speaking of lights, those can’t be that quirky, can they?

Oh boy, why wouldn’t they be weird? If you were to look up weird in the dictionary, the 3rd generation Capri would be an example. So of course the lights are weird. The headlights “pop up” when in use, making the Capri an excellent safety hazard for any pedestrian who wants to be impaled by headlights. However, you can be a safety hazard without turning the lights on, by using a rocker switch in the center console. Why it looks like something out of a bus is beyond me though. The headlights aren’t alone in the weird lights department, the turn signals on the front are involved in that party as well. The lens’ of the turn signals are white, even though the side strip of the that housing is orange. Weirder still, the bulbs inside of the lens’ are orange. Funnily enough, there's nothing illegal about white turn signals at all, at least in the United States. Moving on to the rear lights, you being to realize how small the car is, and better yet, how big these rear lights are. They’re about half the size of both the height and width of the car. It’s not like anyone will see those lights though, due to how low the car is, and the fact that most drivers today are morons, paying more attention to their phones than the road. More lighting oddities include the location of the “dome lights”, due to the lack of a roof on the car. They are located in the driver’s and passenger’s footwells, respectfully. Still continuing with the lighting theme, the car has a seatbelt warning light. However, it doesn’t warn you if your seatbelt is buckled or not, it just flashes a few times when you start the car. One light it really needs, though, is a low fuel light. But hey, at least the fuel gauge tells you a “really accurate” reading of your fuel level.

Don’t think, however, that everything on this car is quirky. The climate controls, for example, is a set of 4 levers and a button. It's clearly labeled without English, so anyone could work it. The styling of the car is really normal for the era of the car, besides a few oddities, including the convertible top looking like a toupe for the car. The engine is a simple dual overhead cam unit that was in a bunch of Ford, Mercury, Lincoln, and Mazda products. It gets good gas mileage, that’s with you driving it though. Mine gets close to 12 MPG, but it mainly sits and idles. I guess the only really weird thing about this car, is the massive smile you get when you drive this thing. I’ll try to explain it to you, but you really have got to drive one of these things.

So, driving the Mercury Capri. As soon as you start driving this thing, you realize one thing. It’s not fast, but it’s not slow either. However, this means you can put the hammer down, row through a few gears, and not be breaking 17 traffic laws, unlike a Corvette or a Mustang. The clutch and shifter feel not too heavy, and not too light, really the only word I have to describe them is excellent. The steering and dartiness of this amaze me to no end. Your able to chuck this car into any corner at a pretty decent speed and make it out alive, avoiding both trees and ditches, unlike certain cars. This little car is truly a brilliant car to drive.

That is the Mercury Capri. It may not be the fastest thing on four wheels, nor the prettiest, nor the most technologically advanced, but it sure is one of the best cars to drive. The only cars i can think of to beat this car in handling is, ironically, the Mazda Miata, and a few supercars. This car is better value than any of them though, as they typically sell for around $3k, whereas a Miata is more in the realms of 5k, and supercars being easily in the couple hundred thousand range. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a big smirk to wipe off of my face.