Crikey, there is a Janspeed Capri V6 turbo for sale

Not long ago, performance goodies from manufacturers were much more common. With the warranty intact, it would have almost been remiss to buy your Ford ST without a Mountune tune, or your Leon Cupra with an Abt tune, because they usefully improved the experience for not much money. Hyundai went all in with a range of N Performance parts, which would have been ideal for the i30 N and i20 N, but concluded that the performance car range should consist solely of an electric car costing £65,000. And who is going to change that?

As cars have become more complex and costs have risen, OEM involvement in performance upgrades seems to have become a rarer concept. Unless you spend £100,000 on Manthey bits for a GT3, of course. But here’s an example of third-party involvement that could have created something very special indeed. It was a project that was unknown to us before we saw this car: it is a Ford Capri Janspeed V6 turbo. And yes, it really is two-tone beige and brown.

See, when the turbo system was still in its infancy, Ford wasn’t quite at the races yet – at least not when it came to the Capri. RS turbos soon appeared for hot hatch buyers, but the Capri and its old Essex V6 looked a little weak against a new generation of force-fed rivals. For example, a 924 Turbo might not have sounded as good as a 3.0-liter Capri, but it was more powerful and torquey.

So Janspeed was consulted to see what could happen with a fan bolted onto the six-cylinder. This was 1980, close to the time when the Essex was due to be replaced by the 2.8 Cologne in the Capri range, although the four turbo prototypes – of which there was one – used the old engine. The result was the Ford Capri Janspeed Essex Turbos, as they were called.

All four were quickly operational and subsequently tested with Janspeed and customers; also successful, in all respects, the only thing holding back a Janspeed Capri turbo is the predicted insurance costs. Too bad – ‘Janspeed Capri turbo’ is not only a great car name, it would certainly have been a real hooligan to drive. Maybe that’s the cause of the insurance problem…

It is believed to be the last of the four surviving Janspeed development cars, and it survived only by the skin of its teeth: like so many Capris, it was left on a scrap heap in the 1990s. The ad suggests that an owner looking for parts couldn’t ignore the color scheme and ended up taking the whole thing home. Since then, the story of the Janspeed Capri has been researched and the car has been thoroughly restored, resulting in a fascinating piece of fast Ford history.

The work carried out included unearthing all the correct turbo parts, a respray and a suspension overhaul, keeping the car as close to its original 80s specification as possible. It’s been published in a magazine and understandably comes with reams of paperwork to back up its incredible history. Good V6 Capris still pop up every now and then, but certainly with less frequency. It’s really exciting to see such an important one appear.

Of course you pay for that interest, this one is for sale for £59,995. That’s, even by contemporary Capri standards, way more than the rest. Fortunately, there is no RS badge on it. But the rest aren’t the only survivors, a great piece of fast Ford heritage that could very well have been sent to the scrap heap in the sky. The rest is not two-tone either. For the money it’s one for the Blue Oval collectors, although we all know plenty of them. And what a car will appear at the classic car shows next summer. Take it easy on that turbocharged accelerator…