"They're more than just new additions to your showroom ... in their own way they represent the future of the Mercury franchise", so says the female narrator of the sales-training film in her opening gambit. Not that I'm suggesting Capri contributed to the Mercury brand's much later demise, but the comments strike me as perhaps a little ironic. Unscrambling my memory banks, the Capri deserved positive attention for the economic benefits of fully manufactured exports, at a time when Holden was merely pumping out Family II engines ... but, the focus as I recall was directed more toward the retail price disparity between the US cars and the 'home' market here in Australia, this before any issues arose regarding soft top water ingress. I also recall the Capri as a car perceived of sporty pretention, especially in the face of Japanese rear wheel drive competition in the form of Mazda's MX-5 (Miata) and Toyota's MR2 ... certainly, the Capri was seen by me as a compromise, based upon a Laser / Mazda 323 platform whose compromise shone most brightly in the form of the two bonnet 'blisters' necessitated by the Capri's lowered front section profile. It was a car unabashedly designed for the American market and isn't it a damn shame that a similar effort was to never eventuate for the Falcon, at least when that style of sedan was still universally popular. Through all the bad press, one Capri effort did shine brightly in the local market and that was the Tickford rendition, in the ClubSprint that appeared for strictly Australian consumption only, in 1992 ... with a decent suspension and wheel package, the car became properly 'sporty' and with the front and rear overhangs greatly reduced, the ClubSprint also looked the part, especially so with those Ferrari-esque circular tail lights ...