in America the only Capri that we ever got from Ford was the rebadged and imported Mercury Capri and with it came either an anemic inline 4 cylinder or Ford's first ever V6 that they sold in an American market car still nonetheless with cars such as the Mustang the Mercury Cougar and the Torino available stat side we had no shortage of performance Fords available to us here which meant that there really was never any need for someone to want to hop up one of these capries but nearly 10,000 M away in South Africa that was not
the case Mustangs were not a diamond dozen and they had to make doe with what was regularly available for them from Ford's European dealers and when there's a will there's a way because a small performance shop in Johannesburg would become the Mad scientists who squeezed a Ford small block into these capries and get this convinced afford to sell them through Factory dealers with a warranty under a very different name and that name was the piranha and this is the story of their insane Factory V8 powered Capri so who were these mad scientists in Johannesburg and
how did they pull off such an audacious feat well enter basil green Motors a small but ambitious Performance Shop based in South Africa they got their start in 1967 by by a man named basil green himself this company was essentially a team that specialized in tuning and setting up European Ford products to be dominant racing forces on the track and their blank slates would be cars like the Cortina the Granada and of course the Capri the first ever Road car that basil green Motors built was the Cortina piranha V6 which came out officially in 1968
based on the Mark I Cortina GT which was offered by Ford with a 1.6 L inline 4cylinder engine that made around 90 horsepower or so basil green and his team would promptly rip that stock for Banger out of the car and replace it with a period 3 l Ford sxv6 which would have made around 148 horsepower this meant that all said and done they were able to make these cortinas make over 50% more power than they ever left the factory with they used other drivet Tran components from the Ford Zephyr markv as well to help
Wrangle in that 3 L engine inside the Cortina chassis but the overall result was a car that was pretty darn fast for the South African market and at just over 100 pounds heavier than stock it wasn't like this new motor change ruined the driving dynamics of the car either especially when paired with its now beefed up suspension the car was well received and it was eventually sold through Griner motor Motors who was the largest Ford dealer in South Africa so things were off to a pretty good start for Basil green just a year in and
next in the line of their piranha cars was their 2 L piranha escort which was actually kind of the opposite of the first car they built by this time Ford and basil green had a good relationship and Ford wanted to sell the rs600 escorts in South Africa but their finicky Cosworth Motors were not going to fit with the local market well so basil green switched out the engines with the 2 L inline 4cylinder from the Ford Pinto to make running costs and the actual ease of maintenance on these cars way better for the market and
granted the pinto engine was definitely less lively than the Cosworth motor but the tradeoff of being able to get parts for it versus not definitely outweighed the downside and then finally after the escort came the car that really cemented the Legacy of Basil green Motors and the piranha name the Capri piranha now right off the bat when the new Ford Capri launched outside of the US it was really Ford's International Mustang and basil green quickly began modifying them for the South African Market because cars shipped there came equipped with either Ford's Kent in line 4
or their 2 L V4 SX platform based engine and since the 2 L SX motor would fit this seemed like an easy upgrade for green to make they would just throw in the 148 horsepower 3 l sxv6 after all it should in theory just bolt up now basil greed actually did make these cars but they only made a few of them because Ford themselves actually started producing Factory 3 l sxv6 Capri for the South African Market this meant that now if basil green wanted the piranha to stay at the top of the food chain it
would have to go even bigger and bad for their engine choice so they went to the best thing that Ford had to offer which they could cram into the small Capri engine bay and that was the 302 small block Ford V8 straight out of a Mustang coupled with either a four-speed topl loader or a three-speed automatic there was some serious work that had to be done to the frontend suspension geometry and steering systems in the Capri in order to get everything together and to clear but green and his team were able to pull it off
basil green also used a modified Australian Market Ford Falcon XB rear end to help put the power down and also so it could fit inside of the Capri but I should note that none of this would have been possible without Ford's help because Ford of South Africa was really heavily involved in this project the play in Port Elizabeth would ship the Capri to Basil green sanss the engine and transmission as complete cars for the full piranha overhaul to be done to and in this application the 302 small block that was in these cars would now
be putting out in the mid to high 200 horsepower range which would be over 100 horsepower more than even the 3 l V6 Capri had and here's the kicker these V8 cars all said and done barely weighed even 20 lb more than the six-cylinder ones did thanks to some Choice use of aluminum on the intake manifold and for the bell housing this meant that the total curb weight was right around 20 500 lb 0 to 60 happened in a mere 6 seconds and these were low 14 second cars in the quarter mile and they undoubtedly
would have been faster if the Capri could have fit a larger tire for better traction as these cars came with 13-in diameter wheels and 185 section tires allegedly from the factory these piranhas were only available in two colors bright yellow or Parry Perry red and they could only be had with black Interiors as it turns out a few cars were actually made in other colors as well besides the yellow and red but they are pretty rare on the exterior the only thing that could really help you identify an actual piranha car from a normal Capri
were the piranha Badges and black decals that ran up the hood of the car as well as the black trunk that was fitted on some cars too the one area where the now much faster Capri piranha lack though was breaking maintaining the stock 13-in wheel size didn't provide many options for high performance brakes as one could imagine and as a result the braking system was left largely unchanged except for some slightly better pads on the front discs 1970 to 1972 basil green and his team pumped out around 500 of these Factory V8 Capri which could
be ordered at any South African Ford dealer for the tune of apparently about 5,000 back then which was a ton of money but as cars that were responsible for winning racing championships in South Africa from 1970 straight through 1973 it was safe to say that you were paying for the best that you could get in that market basil green would go on to work on a few other cool Ford products but none would ever really reach the Acclaim and cool factor of the V8 Capri that they built today these cars are very hard to come
bu and they do fetch a premium at auction as really a testament to the Builder himself basil green with Ingenuity and racing success basil green Motors didn't just build fast cars they caught the attention of even Ford corporate itself earning their place as South Africa's answer to Shelby or ter Rous and that is the short story of the South African Carol Shelby and his V8 Capri let me know in the comments down below if you had ever heard of this car before watching this video I actually genuinely want to know but thank you all for
watching another video please make sure to like share and subscribe it really helps me out but otherwise until next time enthusiasts
